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406
•E>73
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MY
DIARIES
Part
One
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BOOKS BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
PROSE
THE FUTURE OF ISLAM 1882
IDEAS ABOUT INDIA 1885
THE SECRET HISTORY SERIES
I THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH OCCU*
PATION OF EGYPT 1907
II INDIA UNDER RIPON 1909
III GORDON AT KHARTOUM 1911
IV THE LAND WAR IN IRELAND 1912
V MY DIARIES PART I. [THE SCRAMBLE FOR
AFRICA] 1919
VI MY DIARIES PART 11. [THE COALITION
AGAINST GERMANY] 1920
POETRT
LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS 1880
THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND 1883
IN VINCULIS 1889
A NEW PILGRIMAGE 1889
ESTHER AND LOVE LYRICS 1899
GRISELDA 1893
SATAN ABSOLVED 1899
SEVEN GOLDEN ODES OF ARABIA 1903
POETICAL WORKS. A COMPLETE EDITION 1914
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'^GJiJini^ Q^ccuotyt JoCiint
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Z DIARi:
a P •: »-«] Nurr"?*' V e of llisnt? It.^
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MY DIARIES
Being a Personal Narrodve of Eyentt 1888-1914
By
WILFRID SGAWEN BLUNT
With a Foreword by Lady Gregory
PART ONE
[1888-1900]
NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF MGMXXn
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COPYRIGHT, 19«1,
BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
Published, December. JMl
Second Printing, March, 19M
numvp iir TBB uvrriD STAms ov ajoixeoa
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This edition of My Diaries is a full and complete re-
print of the much sought after London edition of 1919-
1920. Mr. Blunt has himself passed the proofs as well
as the Foreword by Lady Gregory.
I owe a special word of thanks to my friend, Osmond
Kessler Fraenkel, Esq., for great assistance in seeing these
volumes through the press. Mr. Fraenkel is also in a
large part responsible for the indices.
A. A. K.
407344
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PREFACE WRITTEN FOR THIS EDITION BY LADY
GREGORY
A few Sundays ago I was sta3ring with Mr. Blunt at Newbuildings
Place, that ancient and beautiful manor house which has been a
best loved part of his inheritance, as I have been used to do periiaps
once in a year when chance or business draws me from Ireland to
London. We were out of doors all the morning, he in his P-ny
chair, in the beautiful oak woods that cover some five hundred of his
Sussex acres. Our midday meal was set out nearer the house yet
still under blossoming trees. Peacocks came to be fed and among
them a Spanish lamb, black-spotted, using its sprouting horns to
butt at the watch dog in whose companionship it had been reared.
And as we talked "the Squire," (for so he is known to his people)
told me, and with pleasure in the telling, that these volumes of his
**Diaries," being sold out in England were now being printed in
America, an honour new to him, for his work is not yet so widely
known there as at home. But he said, and he was a little troubled
with regard to this, that a new preface had been asked of him that
would give something more of a biography, even of a confession,
than is to be found in the text of the "Diaries" and "I am not at
present" he said "in a mood for writing this." I did not see him
again, but after my return to Ireland not many days later, a home-
coming hastened by news of troublesome events near by, a letter
came from him reminding me of our talk and asking me to "do him
a great kindness" and myself write the few needed words. I fdt
such a request from my friend of forty years an honour and not to
be refused if I could but accomplish it, but there is much to say in
a short space and it is sometimes harder to say less than more.
" I have lived my life in full " he said the other day and he had
written, as I remembered, in the preface to the complete edition of
his verse, "No life is perfect that has not been lived, youth in
feeling, manhood in battle, old age in meditation," and that very
same day someone said to me in London when I spoke of him ** His
life has been lived for freedom." That full life of his has, more
happily than many, found its record not only in public action but in
the intensity of lyrical expression — as an earlier poet has said
"outward to man— inward to the Gods." He tells in these diaries
vii
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viii Preface
in vigorous prose of the drcumstances that have in the last 30 years
surrounded him, of talks with friends, and the gossip of Parliaments,
of gatherings for shooting or for tennis or for the sales of his famous
Arab Stud. They were written in early mornings not only where
Eastern travel accustomed him to rise with the rising of the sun
but through London seasons, and visits to great country houses in
fine society, for he was many sided; a man of fashion, rider to hounds
at home; rider also on the camels of the desert; attache at the court
of a King of Greece, a Queen of Spain, an Emperor of the French at
the time of that Emperor's supreme vain glory, translator from the
Arabic; painter, architect and sculptor (as is shown in his greatest
effort, the beautiful monument at Crawley, the reciunbent figure of
his brother) ; politician outside Parliament ; revolutionist and helper
of revolutions.
A brief summary of his earUer history, before I knew him, has
been given me by a friend of his and mine:
"The English books of reference tell us that Mr. Wilfrid Scawen
Blunt was bom at Crabbet Park in Sussex in the year 1840. His
father was a squire possessed of some four thousand acres mostly of
forest land; a justice of the peace, a Deputy Lieutenant of that
county, and master of the local foxhounds, who had served in the
Peninsular campaign and had carried the colours of the Grenadier
Guards under Sir John Moore at the battle of Corunna where he was
wounded, and remained through life a follower of the Duke of
Wellington, the object of his political devotion.
"Mr. Blunt's sole hereditary connection with letters, it is inter-
esting to learn, was that the family estates in Sussex lay closely
adjoining those of the Shelleys and that his great grandfather was
fellow justice of the peace to Percy Shelley's father and that they
sat as Magistrates on the same Bench at the County town of
Horsham, also that his father was a contemporary at Harrow
School of that other great poet Byron, and acted as "fag" to him
there according to English public sdhool fashion for a year, memories
that are cherished in the family traditions.
"Left an orphan while yet a child, he had been brought up a Cath-
olic and had received his education under the Jesuits at Stonyhurst
and later at Oscott, but pursued his education no further. He was
never at an university, but at the early age of eighteen was given, by
one of his guardians connected with the Ministry of the day, a post
in the Diplomatic Service and was sent abroad the same year as
attache to the British Legation at Athens and afterwards by way of
Constantinople to Germany, where he went through a mental crisis
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Preface ix
connected with the Darwinian discussions of the day, allusions to
which will be found in the diaries.
"From Frankfort he was transferred in 1863 to Madrid and in the
following year to the Paris Embassy, just then at the full height of
the short lived glory of the Second Napoleonic Empire. Here the
romantic follies of his youth began and with them the first out-
pourings of his poetic faculty followed by a diplomatic exile to the
remoter posts in the service — to the L^ations of Portugal and the
River Plate. On his return to Europe he married Lady Anna-
bella Noel, the only daughter of William Earl of Lovelace and of Ada
Byron, that child of romance to whom the poet Byron addressed those
pathetic lines: "Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart**; and
the year after on the death of his elder brother he left the diplomatic
service and settled down to a country life on his ancestral acres. There
he and his h^hly gifted wife busied themselves for some half dozen
years, she with painting, he with sculpture, and in secret with
those verses which afterwards were to become so celebrated as "The
Sonnets of Proteus," and both in the rebuilding of their family home,
Crabbet Park, a work for which they were their own sole architects.
"In 1875 tiring of too inadventurous a life at home, a sudden impulse
started tiiem on a series of romantic horseback journeys in Spain,
Algeria and Asia Minor, and eventually in that still wilder wandering
in Mesopotamia, Persia and the as yet quite unvisited regions of
Central Arabia.'*
It was in 1881 that my first meeting with him and Lady Anne took
place, at Cairo, when they were living in the garden they had bought
on the desert ed^e of Heliopolis ; and at that meeting my husband had
told us how some years before at a bull fight at Madrid he had been
struck by the extraordinary good looks of the young matador awaiting
the rush of the bull in the arena and asking who he was heard he was
an attache from the English Embassy, Wilfrid Blunt. That fine
poem of his on the dying bull fighter Sancho Sanchez shows perhaps
die hidden root of that adventure:
"Meam'ng was there in our courage and the calm of our demeanour,
For there stood a foe before us which had need of all our skill.
And our lives were as the programme, and the world was our arena.
And the wicked beast was death and the horns of death were Hell.
^And the boast of our profession was a bulwark against danger
With its fearless expectation of what good or ill may come,
For the very prince of darkness shall burst forth on us no stranger
•When the doors of death fly open to the rolling of the drum. **
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X Preface
I will quote again from the summary: ''At die time of his arrival
at Cairo Mr. Blunt was still in the good books of the Foreign Office
and in personal correspondence with Mr. Gladstone as an authority
on Oriental matters and had just published his first prose work
"The Future of Islam.'' But overborne by his strong natural
sympathy for liberty he espoused the cause of Egyptian National-
ism, and when the quarrel between Engkmd and the Eg3rptians
came to hostilities at the bombardment of Alexandria he refused to
abandon the cause that he had taken up, with the result that when
after the defeat of Tel el Kebir the Egyptian leader Arabi found
himself a prisoner of war threatened with death at the hands of a
court martial, he succeeded in rousing popular feeling in England
to shame at their betrayal of an honourable cause, the first of free-
dom in the East, and secured his release and honourable exile.
"The public action taken by Mr. Blunt in opposition to the Foreign
Office, his first appearence in English political life, brought him into
close connection with the leading politicians of the day and amongst
odiers Pamell and the other members of the Irish Party and he joined
the new group of Tory Democrats founded by Lord Randolph
Churchill at that time in opposition which eventually succeeded in over*
throwing the Government at the election of 1885. His fearless action
with regard to Egypt ended his friendly relations with the Foreign
Office and resulted in his exile from Egypt and he was forbidden to
enter that country for some three years ; and came to be regarded as
the ^enfant terrible' in politics just as Samuel Butler was in art and
literature.**
I wrote to him a little while ago asking if he had any letters of mine
written from or to Egypt at the time of Arabi's rebellion for, I said, it
seemed to me I had made my education in politics there. And he an-
swered " You talk of having made your political education in Egypt,
and so too did I with you, for before that eventful year 1882 I had never
played a public part of any kind or written so much as a letter to The
Times with my name to it and we made our education together over
it/' All that story is told in his " Secret History of the Occupation of
Egypt"; and he records that among his most important supporters
there were Lord Houghton '*who in early life had been an enthusi-
astic advocate of freedom in the East, and Sir William Gregory, an old
follower of Gladstone and well known Liberal and who sent more than
one powerful letter to what was then the leading journal of Europe
(The Times) giving the Nationalist side. . . It is hardly too much
to say that Gregory's letters and mine, especially his, were largely the
means of obtaining a respite for 'Egypt from the dangers that threatened
her/' But after the war had been formally declared and at London
evening parties "'everyone was rejoicing over the bombardment of
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Preface xi
Alexandria ** Wilfrid Blunt was almost alone in openly taking the part
of the Egyptians ; though Lord Houghton, while declaring himself for
victory, characteristically told him that if he did go to Egypt he
must bring back Arabi with him '* and you must both come and dine
with me." When after Tel el Kebir tfie short war was over, and
Cairo had fallen and Arabi had surrendered, a rumor went round that
he and his officers, prisoners of war in English hands, were to be put
to death, and a private letter of Mr. Gladstone's confirmed this possi-
bility, some men of honour and good feeling held up their hands in
horror yet saw no way to compel the Ministry to abide by justice and
custom and avoid this disgrace. But Mr. Blunt found a way and
within two or three days he had engaged Counsel to act for the Egyp-
tian rebels' defence. He wrote to me at the time, " I have taken the
precaution of sending out a couple of lawyers to see what can be done.
We are the rear guard of a beaten army where there are plenty of blows
and no glory to be won. Egypt may get a certain share of financial
ease but she will not get liberty, at least not in our time, and the blood-
less revolution so nearly brought about has been drowned in blood."
When the expenses of the defence of the prisoner began to be very
heavy some subscriptions were sent towards it by, amot^st others, Lord
Wentworth, Lord Wemyss, Frederic Harrison, Admiral Lord Mark
Kerr, Lord Randolph Churchill A. W. Kinglake, George Meredith,
and General Gordon (who wrote with his, " I suppose Government will
not pay it. Arabi himself will repay it within a year's time"). But
with a splendid generosity Mr. Blunt took the whole burden upon him-
self, paying if I remember aright a sum of £3,000. It was not his last
service to Egypt, and that passionate denunciation of the Imperal Gov-
ernment in "The Wind and the Whirlwind," though it went past
the ears closed to any but an official voice still stands as an indictment
and a prophecy. Here are some of his lines:
Oh insolence of strength ! Oh boast of wisdom!
Oh poverty in all things truly wise I
Thinkest thou, England, God can be outwitted
For ever thus by him who sells and buys?
Thou sellest the sad nations to their ruin.
What hast thou bought? The child within the womb,
The son of him thou slayest to thy hurting.
Shall answer thee "An Empire for thy tomb."
Thou hast joined house to house for thy perdition.
Thou hast done evil in the name of right.
Thou hast made bitter sweet and the sweet bitter,
And called light darkness and tiie darkness light. ^
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xii Preface
Thou art become a by-word for dissembfiiig»
A beacon to thy neighbors for all fraud.
Thy deeds of violence men count and reckon.
Who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.
The Empire thou didst build shall be divided.
Thou shalt be weighed in thine own balances
Of usury to peoples and to princes,
And be found wanting by the world and these.
Thy Empire shall be parted and thy Kingdom.
. At thy own doors a Kingdom shall arise,
Where freedom shall be preached and the wrong righted
Which thy unwisdom wrought in days unwise.
Truth yet shall tritunph in a world of justice.
This is of faith. I swear it. East and West
The law of Man's progression shall accomplish
Even this last great marvel with the rest.
Thou wouldst not further it, Thou canst not hinder.
If thou shalt learn in time thou yet shalt live.
But God shall ease thy hand of its dominion,
And give to these the rights thou wouldst not give.
The nations of the East have left their childhood.
Thou art grown old. Their manhood is to come ;
And they shall carry on Earth's high tradition
Through the long ages when thy lips are dumb.
The wisdom of the West is but a madness,
The fret of shallow waters in their beds.
Yours is the flow, the fulness of Man's patience,
The ocean of God's rest inherited.
I think when London fashion turned against him for his support
of the Egyptians who fought for freedom, his good looks were a positive
annoyance to his enemies. All had not the good humour of Lord
Houghton who said to me in his whimsical way "The fellow knows he
has a handsome head and he wants it to be seen on Temple Bar." Those
good looks on the other hand and perhaps his love of horses softened
the sternness of magistrates who visited him according to their duty
when he was picking oakum as a prisoner in a cell of Galway gaol. For
in the Land League days, turning from the East he had taken up the
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Preface xiii
cause of "the Westenunost of all European nations and the most Chris-
tian/' and had held it an honour to be "the first Englishman put in
prison for Ireland's sake." He was condemned to two months of that
prison life for holding a meeting of protest "against the denial of the
right universally claimed by our countrymen to speak where grievances
exist" Lady Anne, devoted and heroic, Byron's granddaughter, Ada's
daughter, lingered near the gaol until work on his behalf called her to
England. He took his punishment mth a gallant spirit. Bereft of
books he found pleasure in watching the seagulls as they hovered over-
head, and the jackdaws and sparrows on the look out for scraps of
prison food ; talking of horse flesh with the visiting justices, even find-
ing a solace in the oakum-picking "tiie unravelling of an old tarred rope
with a good healthy smell " — (I still possess a strand of this smuggled
from the cell, and acting as a marker to my copy of his prison poems
"In Vinculis") ; even hiding a bit of rope on Saturday to b^le the
tedium of the unoccupied Sabbath; but finding his chief hardship in
those January nights, being given but scanty covering as he lay on the
plank bed that he found harder than the mdced ground of any of his
Eastern encampments. But with a hidden scrap of pencil he wrote
sonnets on the blank leaves of his prayer book, and some of these are a
cry from one who feels real suffering :
"pod knows, 'twas not with a fore-reasoned plan
I left the easeful dwellings of my peace
And sought diis conflict with ungodly Man
And ceaseless still through years that do not cease
Have warred with Powers and Principalities.
My natural soul, ere yet these strifes began,
Was as a sister, diligent to please
And loving all, and most the human clan.
God knows it. And He knows how the world's tears
Touched me. And He is witness of my wrath.
How it was kindled against murderers
Who slew for gold, and how upon their path
I met them. Since which day the World in arms
Strikes at my life with angers and alarms."
An **enfant terrible'* of politics indeed, he has kept to the resolve
recorded in the first page of these Diaries of " pleading the cause of the
backward nations of the world " in and out of season. He has never
given up his right of protest against injustice in Egypt and elsewhere,
denouncing the floggings and hangings of the villagers of Denshawai in
1905 ; calling out against the hangii^ of Dingra, the Hindoo political
assassin, in 1909; against the Itsdian massacres of Arabs in Tripoli
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xiv Preface
in 191 1 ; against the hanging of Roger Casement in 1914; and against
the "lawyers arguments" used in the British Cabinet to urge and
justify the late war. An unusual and gallant record for a Sussex
gentleman of many acres, of inherited wealth and ease.
The story told in these Diaries from year to year, scxnetimes from
day to day, the " humour, the charming good temper that flickers into
all comers of life" tfirough its pages makes a richly woven background,
a tapestry of rich colour, for the adventure of that personal life, the
" life of love, the romance of travel, the delight in woods and fields and
skies, the pride of ancestry and race" ascribed to him by one who
knew him ; the many gifts, the mastery of living, that seem to belong
to the heroic ages of the world, that show him out as one of Plutarch's
men.
June 12, 1921. A. Gregory.
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FOREWORD
In issuing this, the fifth volume of my " Secret History " series, at
the present moment, I feel that, with much that is only too trivial in the
diary (a thing not written for publication) here are certain passages
in it for which apology is due from me for their too plain speaking in
what will be thought by some an unpatriotic sense. The fault is per-
haps not wholly mine, rather the change which has been wrought in the
public mind and heart of England by the heroic efforts made by her
sons unselfishly in the war.
The period the volume travels over in English public life — 1888 to
1900 — was in truth anything but a noble one, and judged by the high
standards now professed in Downing Street and echoed by the universal
popular voice, proclaiming international right and a respect for the
weak nations of the world, may deserve the worst that I have said of
it, and yet my telling be resented as an untimely reminder of lapses
the country would wish to forget. It includes the Matabele and Boer
wars, and the wars on the Nile, where England led the way in the white
scramble for Africa. There is a special danger for me of displeasure
in regard to Egypt, which forms so large a topic in the text, as it be-
comes more clear that among the many contributory causes leading to
the final catastrophe of the great World War of 1914, our obstinacy in
retaining Egypt, notwithstanding all our promises, must be counted as
one of the foremost. It will be reproached to me that I have sought
to excuse Germany by showing that there were others primarily guilty
and not only the Central Empires. I regret this the more because I
know how many of the noblest there are amongst us who are consoling
their sore hearts, wounded in the war, with the thought that at least
the quarrel was thrust on England by no fault of hers, and who cannot
but be disturbed by my reminder of the broader truth which teaches
that our own Imperial ambitions were also a reason of the quarrel.
Yet the truth of history needs to be told, and not only in Blue Books,
where the essential facts are travestied, but by individual testimony
such as mine, recording the words of statesmen in out of office hours,
when they have spoken their naked thought to me in very different
language. I cannot believe but that it is a service rendered to my
fellow countrymen to do this at a moment when we are endeavouring
to reconstruct our ruined world on a basis sounder than before, to
disabuse them of an illusion, even a happy one, obscuring their clear
vision.
XV
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XVI Foreword
Nor must it be imagined that, because the period treated here shows
England the chief sinner among the white Empires in their dealings
with the weak nations of the African world, my sympathy is more with
the others. As masters of alien races bodi France and Italy, to say
nothing of Portugal and Belgium, have shown themselves far worse
and less scrupulous oppressors than we have been, or in Asia than
Russia was under the Czars, while, as for Germany, it was less the
will than the opportunity of evil that limited its lawless ventures. I
have no love for the German race or its ideals, having an ancient bone
to pick with Prussia dating from as long ago as the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870, when, young and enthusiastic, I made a vow of boy-
cotting the whole Teutonic race (a vow which I have kept), but this
does not blind me to the fact that as active aggressors in deed as well
as word, it was not at Berlin that the first steps were taken in the direc-
tion of world-wide conquest. The will was there, theatrically dis-
played at intervals in Kaiser Wilhelm's not quite sane pronouncements,
and to my knowledge had been there before his day; but Germany's
plunder of the weak had been small in act compared to ours, or even
to that of France, during the past half century, while in each and all
of the great Empires there had been the same ominous growth of
militarism and contempt for the old rules of international right where
the defenceless peoples were concerned. The only difference between
Berlin morality and ours in Downing Street had been that we had been
careful to preserve our outward attitude of forbearance and respect
for moral right, while Berlin had been shameless in its anti-human
logic. Also that as an Empire we were already sated like a lion sur-
rounded with the carcasses of its prey, while Germany was alert and
hungry. Well might we want peace I Almost as well might Germany
prepare for war!
These things, which need to be remembered, will be found more
plainly indicated in Part II of the present issue, which will be pub-
lished in the course of the summer, and complete my contribution of
Mimoires pour servir d Phistoire de mon temps, and, as I think, dis-
charge my true patriotic duty as a nineteenth century Englishman.
Xmas, 191a W. S. B.
PS, — It has been suggested to me, as an appropriate addition to the
value of the present volume, that I should place in the Appendix a
transcript of a yet earlier diary kept by me during the first months
of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. There is so much in these that
stands in dose relation with the war just over, that I have agreed, and
so I print them here.
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V
I CONTENTS
TAOE
Pkeface vii
PART I
' THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA
r CHAPTSB
I. A Visit to Greece in 1888 i
II. Egypt under Tewfik, 1889 22
i III. Brigandage in Egypt 40
I IV. The Young Khedive Abbas, 1892 to 1893 ^^
I V. The Veiled Protectorate 84
VI. Cromer's Heavy Hand 108
I
I VII. A Summer in England, 1894 140
j VIII. A Visit to Tunis and Tripoli 153
IX. Poland and Armenia 175
X. The Advance on Dongola 193
XI. The Jameson Raid 211
XII. SiwAH 242
! XIII. Omdurman and Fashoda 277
I XIV. "Satan Absolved" — The Boer War 302
1 XV. Last Year of the Nineteenth Century 336
I
i APPENDICES
' I. My Paris Diary of 1870 381
' II. Memorandum as to the Evacuation of Egypt 406
III. Mr. Herbert Spencer to Mr. Blunt 410
Index 413
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PART ONE
THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA
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PART I
1888 TO 1900
CHAPTER I
A VISIT TO GREECE IN 1888
The year 1888 saw the dose of my activities in English public life.
How this came about was described in my volume, " The Land War
in Ireland." It told how, having fought my battle for Nationalism
there and lost it (for my imprisonment had failed to win me the seat
in Parliament which alone would have justified me in English eyes for
the part I had played in the Celtic quarrel) I resolved to look no more
to action at home but to seek in other ways what I still felt to be my
mission in life, that of pleading the cause of the backward nations of
the world, and especially those of Asia and Africa, from their slavery
to Europe. I knew myself to be regarded as a beaten man, and for the
moment my depression was extreme.
Socially, as well as politically, I needed rehabilitation. My "un-
patriotic *' vagaries, for such they were looked upon, had estranged me
from most of my personal friends, my blood relations and those I
loved best; nor could I content myself with my new political ac-
quaintances or, with the strong instinct I had of the claims of kinship,
shift my heart at once to a new hold and break permanently with the
society in which I had been bred. All my relations and nearly all my
intimate friends were in the Tory camp, and I had no natural footing in
any other. With the exception of the Carlisles and the Harcourts, I
was at home in none of the great Whig houses, and in my own county
of Sussex I stood absolutely alone in my opinions. Nothing can be
conceived more dispiriting than the attempts at social entertainment
made that Spring in London by the few Liberal peers who had de-
clared for Home Rule, unwilling, followers of Gladstone. I went with
my wife to one of these, at Spencer House, but we found ourselves
among strangers and did not go to another. At Crabbet it mattered
less, for I was Lord there of my own Manor, cock on my own dunghill,
yet I had been shocked by the incongruity of being met at my door on
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2 Longing for the East [1888
my return from Kilmainham by a dq)utation consisting of three Irish
M.P/s and Langridge, our local cobbler and only Radiod. It revealed
the full nakedness of the land for me at home, on any lines but those
of silence and abstention. And thus the summer passed. I occupied
myself once more with my Arab horse breeding, I wrote verses and
enjoyed my physical life in the green Sussex woods as in former days,
but with the sadness a sense of failure brings. I left off keeping my
journal, so little there was of happy interest to record, so much that
was unhappy. An unfortunate family quarrel about this time, in which
I was constrained, unwillingly, to take a part, added to my bitterness in
regard to the public situation, and a gap of four months occurs in the
entries. It was not till quite the end of the summer that I was able
to rouse myself into any more profitable line of thought than that of
vain regrets and hopes made void.
By the middle of autumn, however, tired of inaction, a longing
seized me once more to visit Egypt and those desert lands in which so
many of my winters had been spent With the Arabs I had a second
home, less estranged from me than the other, and I should find myself,
I knew, in that " rut of centuries " which is so soothing to the Japhetic
soul troubled with Europe's ephemeral ills. Thus, on the 9th of
November my journal is resumed, and shows me on my way eastwards
with my wife and my daughter Judith, now taken for the first time
abroad with us, at Paris, enjoying, for a few days, something of my
old life with my cousin, Francis Currie, whom I had not for some
years seen.
" loth Nov. — Bitters and I breakfasted together this morning and
took one of our familiar walks in the afternoon, visiting Richelieu's
tomb at the Sorbonne and the Pantheon and the Hotel de Quny. The
tomb is a fine thing in the best style of French sculpture. We also
stopped and looked at the new monument to Gambetta [by Aube, then
an unknown name to me] which I like better than I could have thought
possible. It has good proportion and a certain movement and original-
ity which have merit. We could not have produced anything half
so good in England. They are pulling down the sheds on the site of
the Tuileries, leaving the Carousel open to the garden. This has a
poor effect, but it leaves a fine opportunity of rebuilding to Boulanger,
or whoever else succeeds to the French throne.
"nth Nov. — Hearing that Lady C. was in Paris, I called on her,
and through her persuasion was introduced to her friend Lacretelle,
the painter, whose brother, a prominent deputy, was intimate with
Boulanger, and he invited me to call upon the brave ginSral Lady C.
had already made Boulanger's acquaintance, and had spoken to me
about him when I had seen her in London. Her description of him
reminded me not a little of Napoleon III, * very amiable, but rather
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dull, not at all like a soldier, and with a hand the most disagreeable to
touch of any she remembered. She could not explain in what the
repulsion consisted/ Nevertheless, she seemed impressed with him.
He is floated financially, she tells me, by Mrs. Mackay the American,
and if war comes, he may yet achieve his fortune."
This resulted in my being taken (iSth Nov.) by Lacretelle to see the
General at his house near the Barriere de TEtoile. The moment of
our visit was that of the very height of his popularity, when it was
believed in Paris that he was about to repeat the adventure of Prince
Louis Napoleon in 1851, when France, tired of her constitutional
rigime and a Republic which had brought her no credit, was ready for
" a Saviour of Society," who should restore to her something of her
military glory. This might be effected either by a restoration of the
monarchy, or by Boulanger's proclaiming himself Dictator. The thing
seemed possible enough, especially in Paris, where the idea of a guerre
de revanche against Germany had still many adherents. I, as member
of the acting Committee of the Peace and Arbitration Society, was
interested to find out how far the General, if he succeeded, was likely
to prove a serious danger to the peace of the world, and it was with
that view principally that I hailed the opportunity of an interview.
Lacretelle, the deputy, though personally friends with the General, was
a strict Republican of the Victor Hugo school, and opposed to ideas
of war for any purpose, and he had assured me that the popular hero
was in reality no swashbuckler, though he gave himself the airs of
one for popularity's sake with his principal supporters, Royalists and
Bonapartists, who affected to quarrel with the Republic for having
agreed to a cession of the lost provinces when peace was made with
Germany in 1871. England, however, was at that date regarded in
France as the chief enemy, and Alsace-Lorraine was already beginning
to be forgotten in favour of Egypt. The following is the account my
diary gives of the visit, but I wrote a much fuller and better one to
the " Times," which was published in it a few days later :
*' iSth Nov, — With Lacretelle at 10 o'clock to call on General
Boulanger. He lives in one of the streets beyond the Barriere de
TEtoile, and we found the house crowded. Not only were the two
anterooms full, but the staircase also, men of every rank of life, from
the priest to the decayed soldier and the artisan, a few women, too.
After waiting nearly an hour, we were let in by special favour, most
of the suppliants (the mulatto button boy who did the honours of the
waiting room told us) having no chance whatever of an audience.
The General's reception room is on the second floor, a singular room,
as you go down half-a-dozen steps to the level of the floor when the
door to it is opened. It is a very large place with a single table at the
far end of it and some Louis XIV chairs. The General, who was at
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4 A Man of Peace , [1888
the far table in a snuff-coloured morning dress, not uniform, came
forward to receive us (Lacretelle has just been painting his portrait
for the Salon) and gave us each a hand, and when he heard who I
was, led me with some pomp and made me sit on a gigantic Louis XIV
chair beside him. Lacetelle began to compliment him as "Thomme
du destin," a bit of flattery which the General took very much as a
matter of course, saying that there were moments when people were
obliged to act, and that the wave was rising now, and that whether he
liked it or not it would carry him on to whatever was intended — just
the same words of pleasant fatalism I remember in Arabi's mouth
seven years ago at Cairo.
" The General is a man of about fifty, fair-haired, turning gray, a
fresh complexion, a good but not especially military figure, a very
pleasant voice, and a quite frank manner. He gave one the impression
at once of simplicity and sincerity and of a sort of manly self-reliance
which is doubtless his power. There was nothing of the gSniral de
cafi chantant in what I saw of him. After a little desultory conversa-
tion I asked him to allow me to put him a serious question. ' It has
been much debated,' I said, ' in our Peace Societies, how the quarrel
between France and Germany could be settled without war. Is it
possible to arrange for the neutralization of the ceded Provinces?*
To this he replied, that such a solution might possibly be in the future,
but that he could not say now it was his own ; the German Government
had made it impossible by their policy in Alsace-Lorraine for any
inhabitant of the Provinces to do otherwise than call himself a French-
man; the only way one had of knowing the opinion of districts was
by the ballot, and the Provinces had universally elected deputies who
demanded restoration to France ; while this was the case neutralization
was hardly a practical question ; still he did not say it might not be-
come one. As for war, he, Boulanger, knew war too well to take
the responsibility of rushing into it without absolute necessity. War
is so largely a matter of chance, chose aliatoire, that a man must be a
traitor who would risk the fortunes of his country on it; therefore I
must not doubt him when he told me he was a man of peace. Lacretelle
then explained to him my connection with Arabi and Egypt, and his
manner became extremely cordial, and he told me that he had English
or rather Welsh blood in his veins through his mother [her name,
Lacretelle told me, was Griffiths] and begged me when I returned to
Paris to come and see him again. I said I would do so and that I
might be able to influence public opinion in England somewhat in his
favour, at which he was much pleased and we parted the best of friends.
Lacretelle tells me that he has never heard him talk so well or so
amiably to a stranger, especially an Englishman, as he hates the English
in common now with all Frenchmen. My impression of the General
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is that he is honest, that he is able, and that, the circumstances of
France being what they are, he will succeed."
I had called at the Embassy on arriving in Paris, hoping to find
Lytton, who had just been named Ambassador there, but he was
unfortunately away delivering his Rectorial Address at Glasgow.
"Bitters tells me that Lytton is doing very well here, having made
friends with the Press and leaving all real business to Austin Lee."
Another interesting new acquaintance whom I made during my few
days at Paris was Louise Michel, then so popular with die extreme
Socialists, almost as notoriously so as Boulanger with the army. This,
too, I owed to Lacretelle and his wife and to a certain Madame Dorrian
{nie Princess Merstcherska), who took me with her to call upon
Louise, with whom she is great friends — a most interesting visit. This
is the account of it:
" 14th Nov. — We drove to Neuilly where Louise lives in a miserable
house on the fifth floor. Her apartment consists of two very small
rooms only, without even an ante-room, and when we opened the door
I thought we must have come to the wrong place. It resembled a
concierge's box both in appearance and smell, crammed full with four
people, three dogs, five cats, a cage of monkeys and a parrot, all scream-
ing at the tops of their voices, and though the rest were silenced the
parrot continued its shrieking the whole time we were there. The
family party consisted of Louise and another woman, a young man
and a fourth person whose sex I forget. They were engaged as we
entered on a meal. A deal table, without cloth plates or utensil of
any kind but a bottle of wine and some glasses, was covered with roast
chestnuts which they were peeling and eating. Louise rose to receive
us, a gray-haired woman of about fifty with a wild but honest and
kindly face, dressed in a ragged gown of rusty black, guiltless of linen.
Her forehead is retreating, her features large, her face colourless, its
expression that of a * believer.* It might have been a French country
priest's. She spoke hurriedly, with an excitement which was evidently
habitual and was not altogether coherent. She seemed not to hear the
fearful screams of the parrot or the yelping of the dogs, or perhaps
these excited her, as noise excites the hearing of some deaf people.
The Princess kissed her, calling her by her Christian name, and Louise
seemed pleased to see her. When Louise was in prison the Princess
used to visit and read to her. She tells me Louise is the best of
women, giving away everything she possesses to the poor, and serving
as midwife to the women of her quarter. She is certainly not a prophet
of the sort that goes clothed in purple and fine linen. The Princess
explained who I was and how I, too, had been in prison in Ireland,
and Louise began to talk about the prospects of Socialism. She said
a revolution was certain and near in Germany, and next year would
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6 Prospects of Socialism [1888
see one too at Paris. She was under the impression that England was
mined with Socialism and when I told her Row little that was true was
visibly distressed. She then read us one of her poems and tore out
of a book and gave me the manuscript of one beginning ' Nul soufHe
humain ne se trouve sur ces pages/ and invited us to go with her to a
meeting to take place that evening at Belleville, which we promised
to do, but later I made the Princess explain to her that it was impos-
sible I should really go, as I have no mind to be mixed up in a free
fight, or to be arrested by the Paris police. But it was difficult to make
her understand. She imagined that as I had been in prison I must
necessarily be ready for ever3rthing. 'Why should he hesitate,* she
said. ' There will be no danger, we shall all have revolvers.' I like
the woman, as she is evidently honest and of an unselfish kindly heart."
This is the programme she gave me of the meeting:
Grand Meeting Internationale
a roccasion de Tanniversaire de Texecution des anarchistes de Chicago.
Ordre du Jour.
Primo Les Crimes de la Bourgeoisie &c. &c.
Avec Le Concours d'Orateurs Socialistes Revolutionnaires.
Et de la Citoyenne
Louise Michel.
Here is also the full text of her verse :
BOUCHE CLOSE
Nul souffle humain n'est sur ces pages,
Rien que celui des elements,
Le cyclone hurlant sur les plages,
Les legendes des oceans,
Les sapins verts sous les nuees
Tordant les branches remuees
Comme les harpes dans les vents.
Sous les coraux ou sous les sables
La nature parfois ouvrant
Dans les tourmentes formidables
Un cercueil, ville ou continent,
Et Tetre ayant la bouche close,
Feuillc de chene ou lien de rose
Tombant au gre de I'ouragan.
Louise Michel.
14 Novembre '88.
Souvenir a M. Wilfrid Blunt.
From Paris we travelled on by Marseilles to Greece, where my wife
had a family interest through her grandfather Lord Byron's death
there in 1827 ; how glorious in those romantic days ! how disappointing
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i888] Athens Revisited 7
in its results to-day I We had interests, too, in a long promised visit
to her relations the Noels in Eubaea, and I was curious to see the
changes which should have come about in the thirty years which had
elapsed since I first knew Athens as a member of the English Legation
in the days of King Otho.
" 2oth Nov, — We arrived by night at the Piraeus and landed in the
early morning, Frank Nod having come from Achmetaga to meet us.
It is thirty years almost to a month since I first drove up the road to
Athens, and I find little change. The suburbs have extended some-
what, and the olive groves have shrunk, and the hills are even barer
than before, but nothing marks the progress of the age unless it be the
overthrow of the fine old Venetian walls of the Acropolis. I regret
these as much as if they had pulled down the Parthenon itself. I
wandered in the town for a couple of hours, looking for houses I used
to frequent, and for friends I used to know, but all of these last were
gone. Our diplomatic set at Athens in 1859 was certainly a dis-
tinguished one. At the Russian Legation we had Ozeroff for Minister
with Staal for First Secretary, now Ambassador in London, and Neli-
doflF for attache, now Ambassador at Constantinople. Haymerle, after-
wards Prime Minister at Vienna, was Austrian Secretary. At our own
Legation we had that good Irishman, Sir Thomas Wyse, with William
Eliot, afterwards Lord St. Germans, for First Secretary. Drummond,
Digby, and myself attaches. I was the youngest of all the Corps
diplomatique, only eighteen years old, and a favourite on account of my
youth. The Dufferins were spending the winter there of '59-60, he
little over thirty, his mother, with whom he had been travelling in
Egypt, the most delightful of women. We used all to ride out, a
merry party, twice a week, following a paper chase, of which I was
generally the leader on an old white horse, which, in memory of
Shelley's lines, I called Apocalypse."*
We used to gallop through the olive groves, armed with revolvers,
as robbers were still common in the mountains round, just as described
by Edmond About in his " Roi des Montagues " and " La Grece Con-
temporaine," while one met retired bandit chiefs in the best Athens
society. King Otho wore the Albanian fustanette, and that and the
costume of the Islands, with its immense balloon-like calico nether gar-
ments and red cap, were the common dress of the young Greek bloods.
The king's footmen are the only wearers of the fustanette to-day.
On the 22nd we paid our visit to Achmetaga, ^or me a romantic
spot, for I had spent some weeks in Eubaea in i860 in merry company
* Next came Anarchy, he rode
On a white horse splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
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8 Greek Conditions [1888
in Frank Noel's fathet's time. Edward Noel had come to Greece soon
after the War of Independence in the year 1830, and had purchased a
good many thousand acres in the island, mostly mountain and forest
land, of a Turkish Aga, who was leaving the country on Eubaea being
made over to Greece. He had paid only £2,000 for the whole, and it
must be now worth, with its magnesia mines, ten times that price.
The value of land (Frank Noel tells me) is still rising, and agricultural
Greece is prospering. The peasants are everywhere purchasing their
holdings. They have few debts and are saving money. This is due
in part to the general advance of the country, in part to the abolition of
the land tithe for which a tax on yoke oxen has been substituted. The
peasantry round here are an excellent race, sober, hard-working, cheer-
ful, with many pristine virtues. Such is Frank Noel's testimony.
Eubaea, unlike the rest of Greece, is well wooded with pines on the
hillsides, and plane trees by the river banks. '* I measured the largest
of these last while I was there and found it 53 feet in girth, with a
circumference round the extreme circuit of its boughs of 170 yards,
the finest single tree I ever saw, as it is perfect without break or blemish
more than a few bare twigs on the extreme summit." Returning by
road to Athens on 2nd December we slept a night at Chalcis and another
at Thebes. The journey was made in lovely weather and along a
carriageable road. At Chalcis they were talking of wideriing the
channel between the island and the main land, and of making of it a
large naval station for warlike purposes. To do it they will destroy
the old Venetian tower which is now a chief ornament. We heard the
details of this plan from Admiral Mansell, a fossilized English naval
officer who has inhabited Chalcis for the last twenty-five years. Both
there and at Thebes we were entertained by Greek friends of the
Noels.
During the following days at Athens we enjoyed something of the
society of Edmund Monson, our Minister there, at the Legation, after-
wards Ambassador at Paris, and of Rennell Rodd, afterwards Am-
bassador at Rome, the latter a budding diplomatist with a small talent
for verse, but no great originality, as to whom I shall have more to
say in the course of this volume. All that I need quote from my
journal is that on the 3rd December I had an hour's interesting talk
with the then Prime Minister, Tricoupi, on Greek politics, and the
ambitions developed later in the direction of territorial expansion at
the expense of Turkey.
"3frf Dec. — Tricoupi is a hard-headed man without any special
graces of manner, but he talks straightforwardly and to the point. We
discussed finance, agriculture, road making, free trade, peasant pro-
prietorship, debts public and private, the shipping trade, the Corinth
Canal, and, lastly, foreign politics and Greece's prospects in the Ot-
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toman inheritance. On this last point he said that it was impossible
for any Greek politician not to look to an extension of territory, and
that if Greece did not go forwards she would go back and lose her
independence at the hands of either Austria or Russia. They were
quite content to let things alone as long as the Ottoman Empire sur-
vived, but they must prepare for the future. The Turks were no
longer an enemy, but the others were. I asked him where he would
draw the line of Greek claims northwards, and he said they could no
longer claim the line of the Balkans, but in Macedonia would ask for
a boundary as far north as Seres, beyond Salonika, and in Thrace as
far as Adrianople. The exact limit, however, could hardly, he thought,
be settled without a war with the Bulgarians. Then the conqueror
would fix his own limit.
" I asked him about Albania. He said that Southern Albania, which
was Christian, would revert to Greece, but Mohammedan Albania, on
the extinction of the Sultan's power, would find itself isolated and
might accept a personal union with Greece under the crown, after the
model of Hungary with Austria. I told him I doubted the possibility
of this. Otherwise I agreed with him in his view that it was necessary
Greece should put forward her claims or prepare to put them forward.
Also I am of opinion that if England is to have a policy of the future
it should be to help Greece rather than Bulgaria. Greece would be
always under the influence of pressure from a naval power in the Med-
iterranean, whereas Bulgaria must remain under pressure of the Con-
tinental powers.
" With regard to Greek progress there is no doubt things are im-
proving, though slowly. The revenue has tripled since 1858, when the
financial Commission sat, and this without oppressing the peasantry.
On the contrary, Tricoupi has lately abolished the land tax, a really
great measure, and the peasants, in spite of recent bad harvests, have
money to buy their holdings whenever they are not already the owners.
He has had the sense to put heavy duties on manufactured imports;
and he gives no facilities to the peasantry for borrowing. The country
is certainly improving. Only the rascality of the officials remains un-
changed. Tricoupi was silent on this head, though he hinted that all
was not quite satisfactory. Noel tells me the Constitution is worked
by a vast system of jobbery. If so, it diflFers little from other Constitu-
tions, notably those of France and Italy. On the whole, I find Tricoupi
a superior man. All give him a perfectly clean character.
" 4th Dec. — To Corinth alone, to see the Canal. Good luck took me
in the train with Mme. Tiirr whom I had known an extraordinarily
pretty woman twenty-two years ago, when I was sta3ring on Lago
Maggiore with the U^edoms at the Prussian Legation in Italy. Tun-
was at that time negotiating co-operation between Bismarck and the
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lo Mycenae [1888
Hungarians, or had been doing so, but Bismarck, Mme. Turr tells me,
threw them over. Now Tiirr is President of the Corinth Canal Com-
pany, and his wife, a fat good-natured woman, lives at Kallimaki on
the Isthmus. She was daughter of Mme. Bonaparte Wyse, wife of
my old chief at Athens whom she calls her father, but old Sir Thomas
always repudiated the parentage of her and her brother, who were bom
after his separation from his Bonaparte wife. With her, in widow's
weeds and looking the picture of woe, was a little Greek lady, Mme.
P , and we three are now in the Hotel at Isthmia, the General
being away at Paris, and are having a very amusing time, Madame P.
having recovered her spirits, and giving us her ideas about Socialism,
Eastern politics, and Zola's novels. She was a Greek, bom at Alex-
andria, but has lived most of her life at Paris. I was sent with an
employe to see the Canal works. They are monumental.
"S^A Dec. — On to Nauplia, having spent twenty-four hours very
agreeably with these two women. Madame P. has given me a deal of
political information. She says every serious person in Greece has
been obliged to abandon the grande idie (that of inheriting Constan-
tinople from the Turks). She herself does not think Salonika can
be saved from Austria, which is making a successful propaganda there
with the Jews and other non-Hellenic inhabitants. The Bulgarians
must eventually join Russia, and the Servians too, seeing that they are
Slavs. The Roumanians will not do so willingly, but the two great
Empires will divide the spoils. The Albanians will be merged either
in Greece or elsewhere and lose their nationality.
"6th Dec. — At Nauplia I find nothing changed since I was last
here, not twenty new houses built. The plain, however, which is the
richest in Greece, has become wonderfully well cultivated. I drove
this morning early to Mycenae to see how much of the mins Schleimann
had left. He has made a sad hash of the town with his excavations,
but the Gate of Lions and the Treasury still stand (with Agamemnon's
coat of arms over the entrance). What was most interesting, however,
in the place is gone, the ancient ruins virgin of all meddling for three
thousand years. Back to Athens by train in the evening. The last
time I was here we were travelling on horseback, there being no roads
in the Morea except the mountain mule tracks."
This is all that is worth recording of our visit to Greece. On 8th
December we went on by sea to Alexandria, travelling in company with
Prince Osman Pasha on his way back from Constantinople, where he
had been with his uncle the ex-Khedive Ismail, now practically a pris-
oner in his own palace on the Bospoms. **He gave me a deal of
information about Constantinople affairs. There is much S3rmpathy
there for the Mahdists, the Sultan having refused to take part against
them at Suakim. It is not believed now that the English occupation of
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Egypt will be permanent. Osman Pasha is a most intelligent good
fellow, better worthy of his Khedivial rank than the rest of his race.
He narrated to me amongst other things his experience in educating
his daughters, which has only resulted in making them unhappy. It
was impossible, he said, to find them educated husbands ; nearly every-
body now at Constantinople has abandoned the practice of polygamy,
only half-a-dozen among the men of rank he knew having more than
one wife. He named the Grand Vizier, Kiamil Pasha, as one of the
few who continued it ; the Sultan is of course an exception, but he does
what no other Sultan has done for generations; when his women are
with child he marries them. Among the common people of the Turks
all are monogamists. This may be in part from poverty."
During my stay that winter in Egypt I was obliged to be very careful
how I meddled with politics, even in conversation, for, though Lord
Salisbury had given me leave to return there notwithstanding Sir
Evelyn Baring's unwillingness, I was under a certain obligation to
avoid any kind of publicity in my S3rmpathy with the National cause.
I did not therefore remain more than a few days at Cairo on arrival,
but went on to my country place at Sheykh Obeyd, ten miles outside
the town, where I got the little garden house ready for my wife and
daughter to inhabit, a beautiful retired place on the desert edge far
from European intrusion, standing on the old pilgrim camd-track where
it branches off to Syria, and little frequented except by the Arab horse
merchants, who bring their horses for sale each spring to Cairo. There
we lived in seclusion and very happily for the three winter months,
building and enlarging the house and recovering the garden from the
neglected state into which it had fallen through the roguery of those
left in charge. These, getting news of my imprisonment in Ireland,
had imagined that my career in life was over and that they might
treat the garden as their own, economising the cost of its watering and
using it as a run for their cattle. It was a labour of love for nve
restoring its prosperity and arranging for its future better management.
It was only little by little that my peasant neighbours came to pay me
their polite visits of congratulation, and then I found that there was
much hidden S3rmpathy with me among them, repressed only through
fear of the government, to which they knew I had been opposed. My
journal, however, of that winter contains little in it that is politically
worth transcribing. It is a record of conversations with my peasant
neighbours and, as they b^an to hear of my arrival, with the obscurer
members of the old National Party, which still looked to the possibility
of their old chief Arabi's recall to Egypt, and who came furtively to
see me under the guidance of Arabi's old body servant, Mohammed
Ahmed, the same who had faithfully preserved and delivered to those
who were defending him at his trial his master's political papers and
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12 Egyptian SUuaHon [1888
so saved his life. (See "'Secret History of Englbh Occupation of
Egypt/') He had been the first to come to me now, and finding him
out of employment I had put my garden under his charge, a fortunate
inspiration, for he was a man of integrity and energy and speedily
acquired great influence in the neighbourhood and so restored to work-
ing order the lands entrusted to him. To these Arabist visitors from
Cairo were gradually added other sources of native information, the
most important of whom were my old friends Aarif Bey and Mohammed
Modhi, nephew of my other friend Ibrahim MoeUii, both of whom
were now much in the confidence of the Ottoman High Commissioner
at Cairo, Mukhtar Pasha Gazi. We saw, too, something of Osman
Pasha and his sister. Princess Nazli, both of them persons of the high-
est intelligence and knowledge of affairs, while from the Greeks we
obtained much secondhand information of their view of things through
Frank Noel, who had came on to Egypt with us. Nor were we wholly
cut off from the English official world. We did not think it necessary
to call on Baring, but I found my connection, Colonel Charles Wynd-
ham, in command of a regiment of the army of occupation, and Anne
her cousin Hugh Locke King. From all these sources, though I
hardly stirred from the solitude of my country retreat during the
winter, I was able to gather a sufficient knowledge of the situation to
be able to piece it together now for the purposes of the present narra-
tive. The political situation in Egypt at the time, as I came to under
stand it during the four months that I was at Sheykh Obeyd in the
winter of *88-'89, was briefly as follows :
The failure of the Drummond Wolff Convention at the last moment,
after it had been already agreed to by its n^otiators, through the re-
fusal of the Sultan under French and Russian pressure to ratify their
signatures, had left affairs in Egypt diplomatically " in the air." Not
only had further negotiations for evacuating the English garrison been
brought to a standstill, but every section of native opinion had been
checked and disorganized. Instead of a new beginning having been
frankly attempted on lines preparatory to Egjrpt^s restoration to self-
government, all had been left in precisely the same confusion from
which the Convention had sought to rescue it. The Khedive Tewfik
was still occupant of the Vice-regal throne, but commanding no respect
in the country, and dependent for his maintenance on English support
which might at any moment be withdrawn, leaving him to deal as he
could with the Soudanese menace threatening his frontier at Wadi
Haifa. Weak and discredited he was, without personal authority,
and he enjoyed less consideration than Mukhtar the Sultan's Commis-
sioner. Baring, in whom all real power was vested at Cairo, was for
the moment without settled policy beyond that of waiting events, a kind
of marking time with no definite instruction as to the future of Eng-
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i888] Events in Arabia 13
land's connection with the Nile Valley, except that Lord Salisbury,
feeling that he had done what honour required in fulfilment of English
promises of evacuation, was resolved now to leave things where they
were, including the garrison of occupation.
As to the National Party, whether represented by the former Arab-
ists or by any other group, their condition was one of patriotic torpor ;
as a party they had ceased to exist, being without leaders and without
organization. They were disappointed in the hopes raised at the com-
mencement of the Wolff mission that Tewfik wotdd be replaced as
Khedive by Prince Halim, or some other member of the Khedivial
family unconnected with the misfortunes of 1882, who should restore
their lost constitution of that year, and make good Lord Dufferin's
promises. In default of these and of Arabi's recall, impossible under
Tewfik, what poor hopes they had turned mostly towards the Sultan.
But undoubtedly the popular man among the Egyptian fellahin that
winter was the Mahdi, or rather his successor the Khalifa Abdallah and
his fighting lieutenant, Osman Digna, who carried on a perpetual guerilla
warfare in the neighbourhood of Suakim. The popular imagination
amongst the fellahin credited these with heroic qualities, and it was
confidently believed that the Dervish forces would before long overrun
Upper Egypt, and that they were already driving the Belgian Congo
Company out of their territory in Central Africa, that they would rid
Senegal of the French, and, as the issue of a holy war against all
infidel intruders, that they would even reconquer the northern shores
of the Mediterranean. News came while I was there that Emin
Pasha, to rescue whom Stanley had been sent by King Leopold on his
filibustering expedition to the Nile sources, had made his submission
to the Mahdists and that Stanley himself had been slain. From the
Eastern desert, too, news reached me through the Bedouins of an in-
teresting kind. It was to the effect that my former friend Mohammed
Ibn Rashid, taking advantage of a quarrel between the two sons of
Saoud Ibn Saoud with their uncle Abdallah, had marched with an army
to Riad and made himself master of the whole of Nejd, an event of
high importance in Peninsula Arabia. I listened to these stories and
found my interest in the East once more supreme over the petty hopes
and fears of Western politics, and recovered in this way and in the
routine of my daily life in my garden, the peace of mind I had left
behind me on leaving England. I find the following description in my
diary of my life at Sheykh Obeyd.
" 3rd Jan. 1889. — I left Cairo on the 27th, escaping like a bird out
of the hand of the fowler and am established here at Sheykh Obeyd.
It has been a blessed change, and though I have been here all these days
alone, I have not for a moment felt otherwise than happy. I have been
getting the place ready for habitation by the others, and it is quite corn-
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14 Home Life at Sheykh Obeyd [1889
foFtable already in an Oriental way. The house is merely the old
gardener's house with two rooms added, four, in all, and an open
scUamlik, which I use as sitting room. I have had the floors covered
with two inches of clean white sand after the Nejd fashion, and I
spread my carpet over it and sit there. For more furniture I have had
in a man from the village to make bedsteads, divans, and seats (gufass)
which he does out of our own palm branches newly cut at the rate of
four shillings, two shillings, and seven pence halfpenny a piece. The
village carpenter has put up a few screens for more privacy, and the
whole furnishing for the family will cost about two pounds. My room
is like a lantern with windows facing East, North, and West, and from
my bed I can see the first glimmer of the false dawn, which makes the
owls hoot and the jackals cry. Then, with the real dawn, crows begin
to pass overhead, and I get up and go outside the garden wall where
I sit at the desert's edge and wait for the sunrise. At this hour one
sees all the wild life of the place, foxes, ichneumons (nims), jackals,
and birds in great variety, kites, kestrels, doves, and occasionally a
woodcock at flight from the marshes to the garden where he would
spend the day. There are night ravens, too, which have their home
in the lebbek trees next the house, and now in winter time a flock of
rooks with their attendant jackdaws. This is a rarity in Egypt as
rooks are never seen south of Cairo. There are two foxes which live
inside the garden, and I see them most days; they sleep generally in
the day time behind some cactuses or at the foot of a palm tree, and
they often jump up as I walk round, and trot away. They come some-
times within a few yards of my feet, being accustomed to the work-
people, and not afraid of me because I wear an Arab dress. I have
given orders here that there shall be absolute amdn even for wolves, and
the hyenas which sometimes make their way over the garden wall. I
superintend the labour now, mark out the work, and pay the wages,
pruning the trees with a pair of garden nippers. This is a delightful
occupation.
" 20th Jan, — I don't know how sufficiently to describe the delight
of the life here. Anne and Judith and Cowie (their maid), have
joined me here, and we are idly busy all day long. The whole of the
garden (30 acres) has now been weeded and dug twice. The irriga-
tion engine has been repaired, and watering will begin regularly next
week. Day has gone by like day, each full of interest. This morning
we began pulling down an outhouse to clear the land for a new build-
ing; thirty men and boys have been working at the job in high good
humour, and certainly they are neither lazy nor unintelligent. In the
midst of the demolition a large cobra jiunped out and put up his hood
in the middle of them, but they knocked him over with their picks
before he could do any harm. He measured exactly six feet in length,
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1889] Building Adventures 15
and by general advice he was cut up at once into four portions and
thrast down the throat of a sick camel they had with them, for a cure.^
Four other smaller snakes were also killed, but these were of a harm-
less kind. They tell me a homed viper was also seen in the garden,
a fortnight before I came, but this is unusual except in the extreme
heat of summer. Lizards, of course, are plentiful. I have seen one
with rudimentary legs only, making its way along the ground as snakes
do, its feet hardly helping it.
" 22nd Jan. — We have begun a new wing to the house, building with
the ordinary sun-dried bricks, contracted for at the rate of 8 piastres
to the cubic metre. There will be three rooms upstairs and three down-
stairs, and the whole will cost about £80. Also I bought a new engine
for irrigation, and I am restocking the garden with young orange
plants, and in two or three years, if things go well, it will be a better
property than when I bought it seven years ago. I could be quite
content to spend the rest of my days in this pleasant work.
" 2gth Jan, — To-day two three-year-old colts and a filly arrived at
the garden, which I have bought of Ali Pasha Sherif , all three of the
Viceroy Abbas I's stock, one colt and a filly, a Jellabi, the other a
Seglawi Ibn Soudan. This last ought to be valuable some day for
our stud in England. [This was ' Mesaoud,' so celebrated afterwards
as our most successful sire.] Ali Pasha's horses are the only ones of
pure Arabian breed in Egypt, and there are certain points about them
superior to all others, perhaps. He has an old one-eyed Seglawi
named Ibn Nadir, which I consider the finest horse, taking him all
round, I ever saw, white, with immense strength and breeding com-
bined, long and low, with splendid legs and hocks, a fine head and
neck, tail always carried. Our colts arrived as the noonday gun was
being fired from the citadel at Cairo. They had been brought round
by the desert entrance through Zeyd's precaution to avoid the evil
eye. He also sacrificed a lamb on the threshold of the garden and
sprinkled their foreheads with blood. I like these old Mosaic rites and
superstitions. Similarly on Friday the first stone of our new house
was laid, and another lamb was slaughtered on the comer-stone, and
the blood made to flow over it with a Bismillah errahman errahim, Hi
is possible that the blood of bulls and of goats do not wash away sin,
but it must be pleasing still, at any rate more so than the godless rites
of our own stone-laying with a champagne bottle. The work-people
were then feasted, and a heavy shower of rain came down to bless the
building. Zeyd is in the seventh heaven at all these high doings, and
is encamped with the horses under the great fig tree. The work-
people have a merry time here, men and women working together, and
^ N.B.— The camel recovered.
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i6 Zebehr Pasha [1889
there are one or two pretty girls among them who have a deal of atten-
tion paid them. They wear no veils while at work, but are quiet and
well behaved." Zeyd, here spoken of, was a Bedouin from Nejd, who
had attached himself to our service, a man of imagination, a poet and,
like all the Nejd Bedouins, an enthusiast about horses. He was a con-
stant pleasure to us for this reason though repeatedly in trouble through
his little respect for persons and the inconsequence of his tongue. He
was also of value to us as a centre of Arabian gossip, including political
news, sometimes of importance.
" Zeyd tells me that when he was at Damascus in 1887 he learned
that the French Government had written a letter to Ibn Rashid and
had sent it to Hail through Mohammed Ibn Abdul Kader, the Emir's
eldest son. It contained an offer of alliance, and to make Ibn Rashid
independent of the Sultan under French protection. Ibn Rashid, how-
ever, had forwarded the letter to Constantinople, and Ibn Abdul Kader
had been hauled over the coals by the Sultan, but had excused himself,
saying that as a French subject he could not disobey the order of his
government.
" loth March. — There is certainly just now a movement going on in
Egypt in favour of Arabi's recall, and I have received notices of it
from various quarters with a list of those who would act with Arabi
in forming a Nationalist Ministry. Also Ahmed Minshawi Pasha has
sent one of the principal Sheykhs of Tantah to consult me on the
matter, Sheykh Abdul Mejid, and a message has come from a number
of ex-officers from Arabi's army who wish to see me, but I have declined
this, as it could do no possible good and might make trouble; the
Egyptians have not spirit in them to revolt and if they did it would
not profit them. I am glad all the same to find that Arabi is not
forgotten."
One visit only I record that winter of any great interest now. This
was one I paid with Lady Anne to Zebehr Pasha, Gordon's old enemy
in the Soudan, now held a prisoner in Egypt. During the troubles at
Cairo which had followed Gordon's death he had been arrested by
Baring by an arbitrary act of authority and sent on board a man-of-war
to Gibraltar, and there detained at the Queen's pleasure for two years
on no legal charge, for none was brought against him, and there he
might have remained for the rest of his days had it not been for the
interest excited in his case by Lord Ribblesdale who had made friends
with him at Gibraltar and brought his case before the House of Lords.
In 1889 he was newly returned to Egypt, and was now once more a
State prisoner of the Khedive, occupying one of the minor palaces on
the banks of the Nile. It is thus that I describe our breakfast with
him.
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1889] " I am ofdy a WUd Man** 17
'' Zebehr Pasha is a really charming man who entertained us with
the greatest honour at breakfast. He is lodged in the Ghizeh palace
where he is a State prisoner, though allowed to go about to a certain
extent in Cairo, under the charge of a certain Cashmiri Abderrahman
Effendi. Zebehr is a tall, slight man, with long efhli hands, and a face
of the profoundest melancholy. His complexion is brown, and his
features show a cross between the Arab and the Berberi, the Arab
predominating, and a smile of great beauty. He was dressed in
Egyptian uniform loosely made, shivered much, though it was a bright
sunny day, and complained of the cold. He has a bad cough, and I
should think would not live long. State prisoners have a way of dying
in Egypt. We talked on most political subjects, but he avoided giving
an opinion on the actual position in the Soudan; perhaps he was afraid
of the Cashmiri. *It is the Government's affair not ours,' he said.
Of Gordon he spoke with hearty respect, and of Sir John Adye, and
of several other English officers he had known, but he had no good
word for Baring, who was a financier, he had heard, not a politician.
He told us Emin's history and Osman Digna's. He spoke highly of
Arabi, said that he had been present at a conversation between him
and Dervish Pasha in which Dervish had offered Arabi £250 a month
if he wotdd go to Constantinople, but Arabi had replied that even if he
were willing, there were 10,000 men would stand between him and the
sea. He said that he had been very much misrepresented about this
conversation in the English papers, and had never spoken a word but
what was honourable to Arabi. He could not advise Arabi to come
back to Egypt except as Minister; this, however, Tewfik would never
have. All our conversation was in Arabic, which he speaks purely,
being easy to understand. When I told him the English Occupation
would not last for ever he smiled incredulously.
'' He took us round the garden, an uninteresting French garden laid
out in pebbled walks and rockeries, and imitation lawns. It and the
palace cost Ismail, they say, several millions, and the building is in
ruins already. Then we had breakfast and Zebehr was delighted be-
cause I ate with my hands ; he would have nothing to do himself with
knives and forks. 'I am only a wild man,' he said, 'and use the
instruments God gave me.' And he turned angrily upon the Cashmiri,
who was pretending that he could not manage without European ways.
Before going I asked him if I could do anything for him, and he
said: 'No, we two are in the same position, the Government does
not regard us favourably. We cannot help each other,' and he laid his
hand affectionately on my arm. He complained, however, how badly
he had been treated in money matters, and I said that the day might
come when I could do something for him. Our visit was, I fancy, the
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i8 Dalmatian Politics [1889
greatest pleasure, poor man, he has had for many months. He came
down to put us into our carriage and insisted upon paying the driver
his hire."
We left Sheykfa Obeyd on the 8th of March and Alexandria on
the loth.
Here ends our winter's stay in Egypt of that year.
" 13th March. — We are in the Gulf of Fiume, and our journey is
nearly over, on our way to Fiume to spend a fortnight with the Hoyos
family before returning home. The captain of our ship, the Ceres, is
a Dalmatian, and by his own account was much mixed up in past times
with revolutionary affairs. He tells me his two brothers emigrated to
America after 1848, and his son has recently been in prison for political
reasons. He talks of a social war as imminent in Europe, especially
in Germany, France, and Italy, and looks upon Bismarck as the deviser
of all evil, and on a revolt against him and military ideas as certain.
He believes, too, in the overthrow of the British Empire in India by
the Russians, who will be joined by the Indians. He has recently seen
Arabi in Ceylon. We touched at Corfu and Lissa, and the Ionian
Islands, terribly bare and scored with burnings. We saw them well,
coasting close under Zante, Ithaca, and Cephalonia. Corfu is a pretty
town, little changed since the British evacuation, though the people on
board say the place is in decline. Lissa we saw by moonlight. Admiral
Tegethoff, who won the battle there for Austria, did so against orders
and against rules. The Italian fleet was four times his strength, but
his action was fortunate and probably saved the Dalmatian coast to
Austria. There are three parties it seems in Dalmatia: a Philo-Rus-
sian, the most ntmierous; a Philo-Austrian, the most wealthy and
educated ; and a Philo-Italian, confined to a few sea-coast towns. The
officers on board are all Catholic and Philo-Austrian but radicals, and
talk something very like socialism without disguise. They are bitterly
opposed to Russia. They are all Dalmatians. They resent the union
of Fiume to Hungary, but admit that there is no National party in
Dalmatia. The captain, Gelachich, is a capital fellow, a native of
Lessina."
At Lissa we received news of the discomfiture of the " Times " in
the Pamell case, by far the most important incident at home since the
overthrow of Gladstone in 1886.
" 18th March, ViUa Hoyos, Fiume. — We have been a week here
staying with Count and Countess George Hoyos and their children,
governesses, and tutors, a large cheerful party of the kind I like. The
villa is like Paddockhurst (their place in Sussex) in miniature. The
Hoyos' are of ancient Spanish extraction, brought to Austria by Charles
Quint, and she is the daughter of Whitehead, the inventor of the
torpedo, who, beginning life as an engineer on board an Austrian
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Lloyd steamer, has made a large fortune. He is an admirable sample
of tihe self-made man, quiet, unobstrusive, absorbed in his work, liberal
to his men, open-handed in all his ways. The Countess is a pretty
woman, mother of pretty daughters, he a well-bred man of much sense
and information, a first cousin of Hoyos the Ambassador at Paris and
of that younger Hoyos who was connected the other day with the
Austrian Crown Prince Rudolph's death. This is what they tell me,
or rather what she has told me about that tragedy.
" The Crown Prince Rudolph was a very charming man and had
had innumerable successes with women, but had never been in love
till at a party last year he met a girl of seventeen. Mademoiselle de
Wetschera, daughter of a certain Baroness of that name, of no very
honest reputation. The girl, however, was charming, and when the
Prince made love to her fell desperately too in love. Their liaison had
lasted four months, and though the Prince talked somewhat strangely,
nobody suspected there was anything so serious in the case. Hoyos
was a friend of the Prince, not in his service but very intimate and in
the habit of going with him on his shooting excursions. He went
down at the Prince's invitation to Meyerling, to shoot with him the
following day, and they passed the evening till nine o'clock very gaily,
when the Prince went to bed. Hoyos knew nothing of Mademoiselle
de Wetschera's being at the shooting lodge. In the morning, however,
he was called by the Prince's servant, who complained that his master's
door was locked, and they went together, and after knocking in vain,
broke it open, when they found the two bodies together in the Prince's
bed. The girl was then recognized by Hoyos, and seeing her to be ' a
member of society,' his first idea was to conceal her presence there.
He accordingly carried her with the servant's help into a distant room,
where they left her, undressed as she was, locked up, till her relations
should come. This was not till the evening, when her uncle arrived,
dressed the girl with his own hands, and placed her in his brougham,
upright, beside him, and so conveyed her home, and she was buried
with equal secrecy in the night. With regard to the Prince, Hoyos
also conveyed the news to the Emperor, and it was tried to hush up
the truth but in vain. The Crown Prince had previously written to
Sechenyi a letter, part of which only has been made public; the un-
published part contained these words : ' I am resolved to die, since I
am no longer worthy to wear the Imperial uniform.' The Countess
says she knew the Crown Prince well, she had also met the girl and
liked her. She could not condemn them for their death, poor things.
"Another topic of conversation has been King Milan's abdication
in Servia. According to the Hoyos', Queen Nathalie has long been
plotting against her husband, hoping to become Regent for her son.
She is a very pretty, charming woman, but * a Russian, and therefore
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20 King Milan's Abdication [1889
an intriguer/ The first hint her husband had of her designs was on
his return from his lost battle of Slivnitza in Bulgaria. He was dis-
pirited and thought of abdicating, and, when he told her, she was for
his doing it at once. This shocked him. Now she has gained half
her object and the other half she will gain soon by returning as Regent
to Servia." The battle of Slivnitza here referred to was one of the
earliest of the Balkan internecine fightings after the independence of
Servia and Bulgaria had been enforced upon the Sultan by European
pressure. It ended disastrously for the Servians who, without much
cause of quarrel, had invaded Bulgaria and were routed with heavy
loss. The Austrian 'Empire at that time was believed to be in a very
unstable position, held together only by the personal popularity of the
aged Emperor. We stayed ten days with the Hoyos' and while there
were shown experiments in torpedo practice by Whitehead, who had
his factory adjoining the villa. I find, however, nothing in my diary
worth transcribing here, unless it be a list of persons whose ac-
quaintance we made, belonging to Viennese society. This includes
Count Zichy, governor of the town, and his father, formerly Austrian
Ambassador at Constantinople; Prince and Princess Sanguscko, cousins
of our friends the Potockis in Poland, and joint owner with them of
their famous Arabian stud; Count and Countess Breuner, Countess
Palffy and others. From Fiume we went on by Vienna and the
Orient Express to Paris, and so home to England, arriving there on
the 5th of April.
Here there is a long gap in my diary and nothing of any public im-
portance, except the record of a second interview I had with Boulanger,
who had come to London with the idea of making friends there, and
had made an appointment with me to see him at a house he had taken
in Portland Place. I write:
" igth May. — On Wednesday I saw General Boulanger by appoint-
ment at his house in Portland Place. He looks older and more worn
than when I saw him six months ago, but he talked cheerfully enough.
I told him I had been much taken to task by the leaders of the Liberal
Party for my avowal of sympathy with his cause (my letter to the
' Times ' of last year), and asked him to inform me on certain points
which might strengthen my position. The first point I put was whether
he intended to destroy liberty in France, to shut up the Chambers and
make himself Dictator? intentions commonly attributed to him. To
this he said that the idea was ridiculous. The French could never get on
without talking, and a Parliament in some form they must have. What
he wanted was to do away with the personal politics of the Chamber,
which he could effect by reforming it (the Revision). Frenchmen
must be united into a National Party instead of broken up into small
groups. The power of the President must be strengthened, but within
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limits. Those possessed by the President of the United States will
probably suffice. There must be the Veto, but he would not say that
in an old society like the French it would do to assimilate the American
regime too closely. He had no intention at all of destroying liberty.
Thus, in the matter of education he was for full liberty for all creeds,
not as at present when religious education was persecuted. The French
provinces did not want secular education and it should not be forced
on them, but he was not for this a Clerical. He did not himself go
to Mass, but he was determined everyone else should do so who liked.
If a man chose to go about in fancy dress it was no concern of his
neighbours. On my second point, peace and war, he repeated what
he had said to me Is^st autumn about the hazards of war, and his un-
willingness to rush into hostilities. He could not ever propose to
disarm till the question of Alsace-Lorraine was settled. No Govern-
ment which did so could stand a fortnight. He believed, however,
that the question could be settled without war if Frenchmen were
united. He would then most gladly propose a disarmament. In this
sense I might say of him that his ultimate end was to bring about a
disbanding of the great 'armies of the G)ntinent. This he authorized
me to tell my Liberal friends. He invited me cordially to come again
any Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday morning."
I fear I did little towards helping the General in this or any other
way. Politics were at that moment repugnant to me, and I could
not bring myself to start on any new campaign. I never saw the
General again.
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CHAPTER n
EGYPT UNDER TEWFIK, 1889
The summer of 1889 saw me occupied almost exclusively with literary
work. It was then that I wrote my poem, " A New Pilgrimage," which
with many other pieces of more or less the same date I published in
the early autumn. This brought me once more into pleasant relations
with my friends, even those who had been most angry with me for my
doings in Ireland. Chief among these was my cousin, George W3md-
ham, who already the year before had sent me a pleasant word. " We
have so many grounds," he wrote, ** for friendship, our common love
of sport and of poetry, and especially our common blood, that I think
it would be very foolish to allow differences of politics and opinion
to interfere with it in any way. I sincerely hope that you think so
too." Now, on my return to England in 1889, I found him full of
affectionate endeavour to make things pleasant for me on my re-
emergence into social life. In this he showed himself no idle friend.
I had hardly arrived in London when he arranged occasions of meeting
for me at his house in Park Lane with our mutual friends, and event-
ually one with Arthur Balfour, at which we buried our political hatchet
in mutual amiabilities, an attitude we have ever since preserved as
often as we have met. Another friend, equally dear to me with
George, whom I recovered at this time, was Lytton. He, too, had
written me an affectionate letter, regretting that he had missed seeing
me on my passage through Paris. As to my women friends, my prison
adventures, I soon found, had done me no real discredit with them.
The only one of them that had been seriously shocked at it was Princess
Wagram, who, not being English, had made herself more English in the
matter than were my own countr3rwomen, and now she, too, was recon-
ciled. With the rest the episode was a title to romantic interest, which
made it easy for me to resume my place and more than my place in
society. Their kindness did me full amends, and for the next few
years strewed my path with flowers to the extent that politics lost their
hold over my mind, more than perhaps they should have done. My
daughter Judith, too, now growing up, was a new interest of a very
absorbing kind, and my diary, when it is resumed, I find dealing mainly
with home occupations and the details of my private life.
22
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i889l Wmiam Morris 23
Nor must I omit another influence which was an important one with
me that summer in the direction of weaning me from home politics,
that of an intimacy which I then for the first time enjoyed with William
Morris. I had already for some years known the Morrises, my first
acquaintance with them having been begun in 1883, when I met Mrs.
Morris at Naworth, having been invited specially for the purpose by
Mrs. Howard (Lady Carlisle), and had spent a week there in her
company, and we had made friends, but of Morris himself I had as
yet seen little except occasionally when I called on them in Hammer-
smith. This summer, however, of 1889 saw me for the first time at
Kehnscott Manor, where I had an opportunity of intimate intercourse
with him during the many pleasant days of gudgeon fishing we enjoyed
together on the Upper Thames and the evenings when we argued the
questions, artistic and political, which occupied his mind.
Morris was at that time in a mood of reaction from his socialistic
fervour. He had quarrelled with Hyndman, and was disgusted at the
personal jealousies of his fellow-workers in the cause and at their
cowardice in action. He never got over the pusillanimity they had
shown at the Trafalgar Square meeting two years before, when a few
hundred policemen had dealt with thousands of them as though they
had been schoolboys. Morris was too loyal and too obstinate to abjure
his creed, but the heart of his devotion to the cause of the proletariat
had gone. In some ways our two positions were the same. We had
both of us sacrificed much socially to our principles, and our principles
had failed to justify themselves by results, and we were both driven
back on earlier loves, art, poetry, romance. Morris, with one who
understood him and dared to argue with him boldly, was a delightful
companion. He was intolerant of the conventional talk of society, and
had little sympathy with ideas foreign to his own. He had little
patience with fools, and the prettiest woman in the world could not
seduce him into listening to nonsense if there was nothing of fact
behind it. His time was too precious to waste pn them ; and the fine
ladies who affected artistic tastes in his company without real knowledge
put him straightway to flight. To such he was rude and repellent, but
to anyone who could increase his stock of knowledge on any subject he
lent a willing ear, whether artist or artisan, with absolute indifference
as to his social position. In his domestic life Morris was too busy to
be unhappy, and of too sanguine a temperament to worry himself much
over past disappointments; yet disappointments cannot but have been
his. He had a strong and affectionate heart, and had centred his home
affections on his two children, and the younger, May, had just made
an engagement he disapproved, while the elder, Jenny, who had been
his pride as a child for her intellectual faculties, had overworked her
brain and was now subject to epileptic fits. It was touchii^ now at
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24 Kelmscott Manor [1889
Kdmscott to watch Morris's solicitude for this poor girl on whom his
chief home love was bestowed.
Kelmscott Manor was a romantic house, and the life there extremely
primitive. There were few of the conveniences of modem life. The
rooms below and also on the upper floor were all passage rooms opening
one into another, and in order to reach the tapestried chamber in which
we sat in the evenings, it was necessary to pass to and fro through
Morris's own bedroom, in which he lay at night in a great square
Elizabethan four-post bed, an arrangement which would have been of
extreme discomfort to anyone less tolerant of such things than he,
and less indifferent to his personal convenience. It was the same thing
in the day time. He worked at the designs he was making for his
carpets, and at his drawings, and the corrections of his proofs in a
room where he was liable every minute to disturbance. Such discom-
forts had been submitted to by our forefathers, and why not, he
thought, by us. It was this insensitiveness to his surroundings that
enabled him to deal with the prodigious volume of work which he daily
assigned himself, both manual and intellectual.
Such was the house. Out of doors the river — an upper branch of
the Thames — was a constant attraction, and there Morris each after-
noon took complete holiday. He loved boating, as it reminded him of
his Oxford days, and he loved sitting hour after hour in a punt with
rod and line, capturing the local gudgeon, a sport requiring skill, on
which he prided himself, not without modest reason. In all matters
concerning the river he took a passionate and proprietary interest,
cherishing a special grudge against the Thames Conservancy, a body
which interfered with individual rights, and whose legitimate authority
he denied. Against these he constantly inveighed. He loved, too, in
memory of Oxford, to engage in wordy warfare with the bargees, and
had a strong vocabulary of abuse for them which he did not spare.
When on the river he affected a rough manner even with his fellows
in the boat, and scorned to apologize if accidents through his fault
occurred, all which was in keeping with his appearance, which was that
of a Norwegian sea captain rather than a poet, and of this he was
proud. He was very dogmatic, with violent likes and dislikes. He
used to say that St. Peter's was the ugliest building in the world after
St. Paul's, and of these things he would discourse when the fish were
off their feed, for when they were biting he was too absorbed in his
catch to have a thought for anything else.
Of poetry he affected to have little knowledge, and of the work of
those he was averse to, he would pretend never to have read a word. I
remember that on one boating excursion in which we all took part, we
were compelled to take refuge from heavy rain in a little inn by the
river side, and that we found in it a book of poetical extracts whidi we
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amused ourselves by reading, and that among the rest were those lines
of Byron, perhaps his best and quite his best known :
There was a sound of revelry by night.
This he declared to be rubbish, and that he had not a notion whom
they were by. Morris in these playful moods was very attractive, and
of all the great men I have been in close relations witti, I reckon him
intellectually the strongest. He had an astonishingly firm grasp of
things, and an immensely wide range of knowledge. I never knew
him deceived by a false argument, and he was difficult to overcome in
discussion even on subjects his adversary knew the best. One thing
only, I think, he did not know, much as he had written about it, the
love of women, and that he never cared to discuss. My talks with him
that summer confirmed me in my resolution politically.to retire into my
shell, and I think my resolution had a corresponding influence on
him.
"13/A Oct, 1889. Pdris, — I have left home once more for the
winter, and with a lighter heart than I have lately had. My last act
before leaving England was to write two letters severing the last links
which bound me to political life. One was to the Kidderminister
electors telling them that they must not depend on me to stand again
for Parliament, the other to T. P. O'Connor resigning my directorship
of the * Star.' I have intended this for more than a year, but have
taken time to reflect, and am sure now that the step is a wise one.
As a matter of principle I cannot go on pretending to believe in the
Liberal Party, with which I have not an idea in common, beyond Irish
Home Rule. As a matter of personal ambition, politics have nothing
more to give me. I will not be a parliamentary drudge, and I cannot
aspire to lead a party.
" Of doing good in the world in any public way I also despair. I
do not see clearly in what direction good lies. I do not love civilised
humanity ; and poor savage human nature seems a lost cause. I have
done what I could for it. I have, I think, saved Egypt from absorption
by Europe, and I have certainly, by stopping the Soudan war in 1885,
put back the clock of African conquest for a generation, perhaps for a
century. But the march of * Progress * is irresistible in the end ; and
every year the old-fashioned idea of the rights of uncivilised man dies
more completely out. Even in Ireland, the National cause is putting
itself in line with nineteenth century thought. The moonlighters and
cattle-houghers and rebels of all kinds are disappearing ; and, instead,
we see Pamell manoeuvring and deceiving in Parliament neither more
nor less than Gladstone himself, and declaring with Rosebery for
Imperial Federation! In all this I have no real lot or part. Ireland
wiU doubtless get something of what she wants, and she has all my
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26 At the Paris Embassy [1889
good wishes still. But Imperial Federation is not worth going to
prison for a second time nor even standing another contested election.
I have done enough — possibly too much — and am sick and weary of
the machinery of English public life.
" On the other hand stands the world of art and poetry. In this
I can still hope to accomplish something, and with an advantage of
experience not every poet has. I have a great deal to accomplish be-
fore old age takes me and little time. My poems, my memoirs, my
book of maxims (the 'Wisdom of Merlyn),' my book of the Arab
horse. These are work enough for all my remaining strength. Then,
how delightful life is in perfect liberty! Never have I felt more cap-
able of enjoyment, of the pleasures of friendship, of the casual incidents
of romance, of the continuous happiness of life at home. These
harmonize with a literary, not with a political ambition, and so it is
best it should be. Am I not right? "
The three weeks that I spent at Paris on this occasion were delightful
ones passed all in this mood. I found Lytton at the Embassy, and our
old intimate intercourse was renewed. He, older than me by nine years,
was already entering that valley of the shadow of old age from which
he was never to emerge, and which ended in his death two years later.
It was that in which his last volume of verse was written, and he made
me the confidant of his sorrows, but this is not the place in which to
give them more publicity than the volume itself gave them when it
was published after his death. They served to accentuate my own
mood of aversion from public affairs, and I spent most of my time
with him at the Embassy, the same well-known house and garden where
I had spent so much of my early youth officially as a member of it in
the days of Lord Cowley and the Second Empire. I paid a visit, too,
to the Wagrams at Gros Bois, where I mixed again in French society.
The chateau was at that time undergoing repair of a substantial kind,
an experience it had not had since 1830, and my hosts were living in
the dipendance, an interesting suite of little rooms once the abode of
Marshal Berthier's aides-de-camp, and possessed of a certain historic
charm, with their Empire furniture and decorations. We shot each
day in the great woods.
"Gros Bois, Wag^am tells me, has been an oak wood ever since
the time of the Druids. It was a royal domain, and had been given
over and over again to different favourites of the kings of France.
The last instance was when it was bestowed by Napoleon on the
Prince's grandfather, as the inscription over the door records, his
' companion in arms.' The estate is of about 4,000 hectares, of which
fully half are woodlands, 1,200 being inside the park wall, an ancient
enclosure dating from 1650. I never saw so completely isolated a
place, nor one quite so enjoyable. The woods are laid out formally
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1889] VaHcan Politics 27
(as French woods are) with straight rides or rather drives of grass
cut through them, and though there is no old timber, aU having been
levelled with the ground in 1814, the oak trees grown up again from
the stub are very beautiful, and tiie place is full of woodpeckers, jays,
and magpies, besides game. There is a stone recording the death of
the late Prince's first roebuck : let mon fils a tui son premier chevreuU,
with the date 1826. This was Wagram's father, who went on till 1888,
killing something every day in season and out of season, partridges on
their nests if he could find no other, dogs, and sometimes beaters. All
is recorded in a book ; and he might have been the original of Carlyle's
Baron : qui centum mille perdices plumbo confecit et statim in stercore
convertit. (I am not sure of the Latinity.) He died at the beginning
of last year, being about eighty years old, but shooting on to the last
week of his life.
"I have received a nice letter from Kidderminster in answer to
mine, and the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' announces my retirement publicly
from political life. The Princess is triumphant at this retirement, as
she was always opposed to my politics."
All this was very demoralizing from a public point of view. On the
25th I was joined by my family at Paris, and on the 2nd November we
moved on to Rome and Egypt. At Rome, where we spent a month,
I found myself once more within the sphere of the serious life of two
years before, having many friends among the Irish clergy, who formed
so strong an element at the Vatican, and I find many entries in my
diary connected with Irish politics, some of which are worth transcribing
here.
" 4th Nov. — To see Monsignore Stonor, who has inherited much of
Cardinal Howard's position, being a sort of diplomatic go-between with
the Papal court as well as having been made an archbishop. He tells
me that Lintom Simmons is coming here on an official mission to the
Vatican. When he, Stonor, saw Lord Salisbury in London this sum-
mer. Lord Salisbury told him that diplomatic relations would have to
be established with the Pope, but that there was such fear of opposition
from the Non-conformists that it would haye to be done cautiously.
Rosebery had told him much the same thing. Now the pretext is a
settlement of ecclesiastical disputes at Malta. This, Stonor says, is
a pretext only, as the disputes were settled some time 2^0 through
himself. He also told me what happened between the Pope and the
German Emperor. There was no rudeness intended by the Emperor
nor ofiFence taken by the Pope. An arrangement had been come to
between the Emperor and Prince Henry, that Prince Henry and
Herbert Bismarck should come to the Vatican half an hour after the
Emperor, but owing to the slow pace of the Emperor's carriages Prince
Henry arrived too soon by ten minutes. Herbert Bismarck thereupon
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28 Cistema and Fogliano [1889
made a scene, declaring that he and Prince Henry would leave tiie
Vatican if not at once announced. They were consequently announced,
although the Pope had given orders that he and the Emperor should be
undisturbed for half an hour, ten minutes before the time, but the
Emperor told them to wait. Stonor assures me that this was all. It
has, however, I fancy been agreed to hush up whatever happened, and
the Emperor has made whatever amends was required.
" 5^ Nov. — Made a round of visits with Stonor, among others to
the Embassy. The DufiFerins arrived last night, but we did not see
them. With Dering [the first Secretary], however, we had some talk.
Simmons is to arrive next week and with him as secretary, Ross of
Bladensburg. This will make a storm in Ireland, where Ross is known
to have had much to do with the Papal Rescript against the Plan of
Campaign. [See my * Land War in Ireland.']
"6th Nov. — We breakfasted at the Palazzo Caetani, and went on
in the afternoon in a storm of thunder and lightning with the Duke
and Duchess [of Sermoneta] and their daughter Giovanella to Fogliano.
Fogliano, however, we were not destined to reach, for the rain was
quite equatorial, and we stopped for the night at Cistema, where the
Duke has a half-deserted palace, and there we are camped. The floods
on the Campagna were beyond belief, torrents of red water pouring
over the edges of the railway cuttings, and in some places the train
having to drive its way against a strong and deep current. Every
water course was a raging flood and broad streams were forming
themselves rapidly in the fields and still broader lakes. At Villetri
we left the train and took carriage, but stopped here as it was thought
dangerous to go farther. I never in Europe saw such continuous
lightning or such rain over so long a space of time. It has been like
the breaking of the monsoon in India. The torrent in one of the
valleys gave one an idea of what the world may have been in the tropic
age when the great valleys were first formed.
" This palace here at Cistema has many remains of grandeur, fresco
paintings by Zucchero, and fine marble chimney-pieces. The weather,
too, in spite of the rain is warm, and we are lodged comfortably
enough. We play dominoes in the evening on an old fire screen
propped on two chairs to serve as table."
We went on next morning with the first light to Fogliano, just in
time to get across the Pontine Marshes, for the floods were rising and
in one place had already covered the road. Here we spent four days
in this the most delightful country place in Italy. I have already de-
scribed Fogliano in one of my previous volumes and need not repeat
it here. We occupied our time pleasantly enough duck shooting on
the lagoons, which lie between the great oak forest and the sea, in
the early mornings, and riding in the afternoons to visit the Duchess's
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stud, which she has established very successfully here, and for which she
had bought a couple of Arab stallions a year or two ago. The Duke much
busied with public affairs, and the municipal elections now going on at
Rome. He was on the committee of selection, and after much telephon-
ing to and from headquarters ended by sending in his resignation.
This was an early stage of his public career which led him later to the
mayoralty of Rome, and later still to office in the Government. " The
Duke," I write, 9th November, after much talk on these subjects, " is
certainly a most distinguished man, not a man of genius but of very
superior talents. He has read enormously, philosophy, science, his-
tory, and can talk well on most subjects. He is president of the Italian
Geographical Society and the Italian Alpine Club, an honest man in
public affairs, but disenchanted with knowledge and doubtful of the
ends of life like all the rest of us. ' Neither the moral law nor the
law of beauty,' he says, ' can be found in nature, and without these the
world must be lacking in interest.' He is not religious, but supports
religion as being the reason of these two ideas, at least so I gather
from what he has told me."
It was in accordance with this view of religion, and out of politeness
to us, that on Sunday the loth it was arranged that mass should be
said in a little movable hut on wheels like a bathing machine, evidently
a new experiment, a talked-of chapel not being finished or apparently
likely to be. '' The Duke is clearly a latitudinarian though he attended
mass, and the Duchess enjoys life too much to be very dSvote. There
were some thirty servants and peasant neighbours brought in and a
sprinkling of dogs to make up the congregation, which was all out of
doors in front of the house, the celebrant a mass priest brought in from
a distance. Altogether a quaint admixture of mediaeval simplicity
with a nineteenth century lack of faith, but it is not for me to criticize."
On our return to Rome the same afternoon, loth November, I found
letters and newspapers with news from Egypt. " The Stanley expedi-
tion has come to grief in Africa, and Waddai was really captured by
the Mahadists just as Osman Digna declared it to be more than a year
ago. Stanley and Emin are now reported to be together endeavouring
to get to the coast, but an end will have been put to their filibustering
projects of re-conquest on the Upper Nile. The German, Peters, too,
has been knocked on the head by the Somalis, and Islam triumphs all
along the equatorial line. The German Emperor, meanwhile, is at
Constantinople being feted with all honour by Abdul Hamid."
The news inspired me with a fresh longing for the East, where my
true heart lay, and hastened our departure for Egypt, the rest of our
time at Rome being spent partly, as I have said, with my old friends the
Irish priests in the various colleges and monasteries, partly with new
artistic acquaintances, of whom there are so many resident in the
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30 Sir Evelyn Baring at Cairo [1890
ancient city. But I must not linger over these personal recollections,
interesting as they are to me, for they would take up too much space.
All I need notice is that, calling again at the Embassy, I found Lord
Dufferin, to my pleasure, favourable to the pleading I made that he
should help if possible in any decision there might be in the direction
of re-establishing that free government at Cairo he had promised the
Egyptians in 1883, and recalling AraW. On my last day at Rome I
attended a dinner at the Irish college, where I met the Maronite Arch-
bishop of Damascus, and where good old Dr. Kirby, rector of the
College, proposed my unworthy health, and where I was constrained to
speak at length to the students on the prospects of Home Rule. It was
my last public utterance about Ireland. On the morning of the 4th
we left for Naples, and there took ship for Alexandria, and by the 12th
found ourselves once more at Sheykh Obeyd, where we spent the rest
of the winter in the purely Oriental surroundings I have more than
once described.
On the occasion of this second visit to Egypt of 1889-90 I adopted
a new attitude towards the British occupation and Baring, who repre-
sented it at Cairo as Consul-General and British Resident. When I
had been there the previous year I had avoided all intercourse with
the Anglo-official world, but now, on my return, influenced by the
conversation I had had with Dufferin at Rome and thinking that I
might perhaps thus help on the re-establishment of a more liberal
rigime at Cairo, I took occasion of an informal message sent me that
he would be glad to see me to call on Baring, and from that time
remained in friendly relations with the Residency, which were not
without their advantage in a public way. In business matters I found
Sir Evelyn a pleasant man to deal with. He was quick to understand
a case, and straightforward in his replies, willing always to listen to
arguments, however opposed to his own opinions, and with nothing of
the conventional insincerities of diplomacy. It is to this, no doubt, that
he owed his success in converting to his view the many English Radical
M.P.'s who, arriving at Cairo with the idea of hastening on the evacua-
tion, left it persuaded that the proposal was impossible or at least
premature, and that the Occupation must be maintained.
" I2th Jan. — Yesterday I called by appointment on Sir Evelyn
Baring. I had not done so since our meeting in 1883, but it came about
in this wise. When Prince Wagram (he had followed us to Egypt at
the end of the year) was here a fortnight ago he gave me a kind of
informal message from Baring to the effect that he would be pleased
if I came to see him. At the time I was not quite sure how to respond
to this, and I delayed taking any action, but last Sunday I received a
visit from Mohammed el Moelhi, who gave me news of how things
were going politically. He assured me that people were becoming
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more reconciled to the state of affairs, that Riaz was allowing rather
more personal liberty, and that Tewfik had retired altogether from
political action. Nearly all the exiles had been allowed to return, and
Mohammed Abdu had been appointed judge at Benha. Under the
circumstances he strongly advised me in Arabi's interest to respond
to Baring's advance. He said it would increase my opportunities of
influence, for now people were afraid to come to me for fear of
Baring's displeasure. He did not think that Riaz was hostile, though
the Khedive doubtless was. The Khedive, however, was malleable, and
if he saw that Baring was friends with me he would think it safest to
follow suit. I believed this to be sound advice, and I consequently
wrote a note to Baring saying that I had received this informal message
from Wagram and asking when I could see him. He replied very
politely and so my visit was arranged.
" I found Baring at two in his study, and stayed with him for about
half an hour. People say that he is stiff and ill-mannered. I did
not find him so. On the contrary he was courteous and kindly. We
spoke pretty frankly about things. I said I had not called before be-
cause I was not sure whether he would wish to see me. He replied
that the only thing he had thought unfair in our political quarrel was
Randolph Churchill's having accused him in the House of Commons of
having attacked me through my property in Egypt; he had not been
there to answer him, and he thought it unfair ; as a fact he had entirely
forgotten the existence of my property, and he certainly had had
nothing to do with the proceedings taken against me concerning it. I
answered that to the best of my recollection I had never supposed him
to have intervened personally in the affair, and that it was doubtless the
Khedive's doing. Randolph had, moreover, exceeded my instructions
in pushing the case as far as he had done. We did not discuss this
long. I told him the Khedive had had me spied upon, and he said it
was natural his Highness should not be very friendly to me, and should
want to know what I was doing in Egypt, but the Khedive had not
spoken to him about me for a long while.
"We then went on to the state of the country, and I told him I
thought things were going better now he had got rid of Nubar and was
working with a Mohammedan Ministry. He said the Nubar Ministry
was a mistake, but the difficulty is to get Mohammedans who are cap-
able of the work. They are either of the old-fashioned sort who will
hear of no improvement, or else young fellows who take some modem
European plan, and wish to pitchfork it into Egypt whether it is suitable
or not. I said that as to that it was just Arabi's merit that he stood
between these two extremes. Arabi knew nothing of Europe, but
wanted to improve on Oriental lines. I mentioned that I had heard
Mohammed Abdu had returned and received an appointment, and he
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32 Baring on Arabi [1890
gave the Sheykh a high character, and said that nearly all the exiles
were now recalled. I told him that I hoped the amnesty would be
general and would include Arabi and the other exiles who are in
Ceylon. To this he demurred, and said that Arabi, having made an
unsuccessful revolution had to pay the penalty, *not, however,' he
added, ' that I have ever accepted the theory that his was a military
revolt, but it was unsuccessful/ *On the contrary,' I said, *it was
altogether successful, except for the British Army.' ' That,' he said,
'was one of the elements he should have reckoned with'; and I 'a
British army of 20,000 men is too strong an element for any Oriental
calculation.'
" He then went on to talk of practical improvements and said he was
pleased that I had recognized these, but it would be necessary for
many years to come to have some European guidance, and he believed
Engli^ guidance to be better than French or any other. Lastly, we
discussed agricultural methods and a school of agriculture which was
being founded, and agreed that schools of this sort were a doubtful
benefit. [N.B, — The school in question which had been started under
a Scotchman proved a comical failure, the professors after several
years of experiments having had to call in their fellah neighbours to
show them how crops could be grown successfully.] We parted on
cordial terms, and he invited Anne and me to luncheon for to-day. I
declined as I do not wish to go into town again, but I accepted for
Anne, and so she and Judith are to go in there this morning. I trust
this may all be for the best.
"I have been reading Gordon's 'Letters to his Sister,' and find
them very consoling in their resignation to Providence ; his doctrine is
entirely Mohammedan."
This extract has its importance as showing in connection with other
extracts of a later date that the difficulty about recalling Arabi, which
was the essential condition of any true intention of restoring the National
Party in Egypt, resided not in the Khedive only but in Lord Cromer.
The following, too, will have its interest as indicating perhaps the
point of departure taken by him so markedly at a later date in Arabian
affairs.
"20th Feb. — Shahir Ibn Nassar, son of the chief Sheykh of the
Dhaheri Harb tribe of Hedjaz came to Sheykh Obeyd on the 2Sth of
January with his cousin Seyid and a friend, Ali, from Mecca. Shahir
is a pleasing young man and we invited him to stay with us, and he
has been ever since at Sheykh Obeyd. He came to Cairo to claim a
debt of £350 due to his tribe for the hire of camels supplied to the Haj
last year, and was very angry because Riaz and the Khedive had
refused to see him notwithstanding his having brought letters, also
the money had been refused him, and the Khedive had refused his gift
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of a delul. After waiting in ante-rooms all this month he made up his
mind to go back to his people, who have it in their power to block the
pilgrim road, or at least to make things very uncomfortable for the
pilgrims, but I proposed to him as a last resource to see Baring. This
he did on Tuesday, I having spoken about him the day before to Baring
when I lunched at the Residency. Baring received him, by Zeyd's
account who went with him, witih all honour and sent at once for
Riaz and told him Shahir was under his protection, and he must see
justice done. Riaz then went to the Khedive, who already knew of
Shahir's being with me, and they sent Thabit Pasha to Shahir and an-
other Pasha Abderrahman, and all together went to the Emir el Haj
and gave him a wigging and made him acknowledge the debt. Shahir
is to have his money in a few days, and is, of course, highly delighted.
He has given me the delul, which is rather a white elephant as I shall
have to give him a present in exchange."
This Shahir was a most interesting man, being a quite wild Bedouin,
and his father, the chief Sheykh of the most important tribe between
Mecca and Medina, the hereditary occupants of the mountain passes
through which the pilgrimage yearly has to pass. From very early
times they have been subsidized by the Caliphs and Sultans who have
been responsible for the safe conduct of the pilgrims to grant a free
passage, but of late years the subsidy had remained unpaid through
the dishonesty of the agents entrusted with its delivery, a neglect which
brought about much trouble, and occasionally loss of life, through the
hostility of the tribe. Shahir had had little dealing with civilization,
even that of Mecca, and found himself more at home with us than at
Cairo, sharing Zeyd's tent on the desert edge outside our garden wall.
He was a wonderful camel-rider, performing strange feats of agility
with his delul, but was unable to ride a horse, for the Harb are not
horse owners, at least not that section of the tribe which inhabits the
Hedjaz. When he left us to return to his home by sea from Suez, his
delul, an Udeyhah, remained with me, I giving him in exchange £50, a
very full price, for the expense of his journey.
Another matter which I took up that winter with Lord Cromer was
one that lay at the root of all sound progress in Egypt, as it does
wherever a Mohammedan population finds itself subjected to a Christian
government, that of its demoralization by drink. I am no fanatic on
the question of drink in Europe, where the use of wine and strong
drinks stands in no direct opposition, except by its abuse, to morals.
But in Mohammedan lands the case is entirely different. There the
abstention from wine is a fundamental principle of the moral code, and
those who transgress on this point become reprobate in their own eyes,
and lose all sense of decency and decorum. This was beginning to
show itself markedly in Egypt as a consequence of the establishment
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34 The Drink Question in Egypt [1890
of English rule. It had been against the spread of drink as much as
anything that the revolution of 1881 had acquired its moral strength in
public opinion and, with the suppression of the Nationalists after Tel-
el-»Kebir, and the reinstatement of European control, the evil had re-
turned in double force. It is hardly too much to say that we had in-
tervened in Egypt to reinstate the Greek drink sellers, who combined
it with moneylending in the villages of the Delta. The country district
where I had my home was a good instance of how the evil worked.
The villages in our immediate neighbourhood at Sheykh Obeyd were
inhabited entirely by Mohammedans ; in the whole of them there were
not half-a-dozen Copts or Christians of any sect and there was no
demand whatever for drink in any of them. On my return there,
however, in this year I found that a small local railway had been
opened, joining these with Cairo, and that at each station on the line
as the first sign of the coming civilization a drink shop had been estab-
lished, kept by a Greek moneylender in the interest of his financial
business. It was calculated that if the fellahin could be tempted inside
his doors to taste the forbidden liquor the rest of his moraJity would
soon give way, and with it his independence of borrowing. Against
this coming evil the respectable heads of the villages were doing their
best to make opposition, and one morning they called on me to advise
what they should do. I advised them to make formal protest to the
Government, and offered if they should fail in obtaining a favourable
answer, to plead their cause with Baring, who alone had it in his power
to put pressure not so much on the Khedivial officials as on the Greek
Consulate. The Greek drink-sellers were most of them Hellenic sub-
jects, and as such protected by the international agreements known as
the Capitulations against interference in their trade by the Khedivial
police, and the privileges thus enjoyed by them had been re-established
in full force with the overthrow of the National Government, and it
rested with Baring, who exercised all real power, to decide to what
extent the privileges should be permitted to go. The whole question
of the drink shops might, if he was willing, be treated as a police matter
to be dealt with as a common nuisance, and it would not have been
possible for the Greek Consul-General to make a serious question of
it if Baring should insist. The secret reason, however, of the protection
extended to them at the Consulate was, that they bought their immunity
there in part with cash paid down, in part with threats of complaints laid
against the Consul-General at Athens, a form of black-mailing much in
vogue amongst the Greeks.
" 2Sth March. — Saw Sir Evelyn Baring on the drink question, es-
pecially with regard to our being threatened here at Sheykh Obeyd.
I told him of the deputation which had come to me from Merj and
Kaf r el Shorafa (in protest against the drink shops being open in those
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1890] Village Protests on Drink 35
villages in connection with the new railway), and he expressed his
general s)mipathy and desire to help in stopping the spread of drink
in Egypt, but said it was a large question, and a question of law ; he
would see Riaz (die Prime Minister), and find out how the law was;
Riaz was very hostile to the Greeks, and so would be likely to do what
he could. He would let me know the result, and then, if there was a
possibility, the inhabitants of Merj and the other villages should pro-
test, and he would do all in his power to help them.
" 6th April. — Called again on Baring to show him the petition against
the drink shops. It had been signed by seventy-three of the principal
Sheykhs and notables of Merj, Kafr el Jamus, Kafr el Shorafa, and
Biricet el Haj, also by Salaam Abu Shedid and Hassan Abu Tawil,
Sheykhs from the Howeytat and Aiaideh tribes. He seemed pleased
with it, and I left him a translation, and we discussed the question
together and with Tigrane Pasha, who had come in and whom Baring
sent off at once with the original to Riaz. Tigrane [he was the
Armenian Under-Secretary for Foreign AflFairs] declared that the case
could be dealt with without infringing upon National rights. I argued
strongly against its being treated fiscally, but rather as a matter of
police and public morals. In this Tigrane agreed with me, and Baring
said he would do all in his power to stop the spread of the drink shops,
if according to the ruling of the International Courts, and if not, he
would submit a modification of the law to the Powers. We discussed
also several other cases, especially that of the Government salt tax, an
imposition which pressed hardly upon the people, and that of certain
Bedouins imprisoned at Ghizeh. He showed himself anxious to in-
tervene in all these matters, sent for the persons responsible, and
promised to see into the cases. A good morning's work."
The above will give some idea of the practical way in which Lord
Cromer did the work of administration at Cairo, and of the kind of
questions I was able to bring before him. That he had the reformation
of abuses at that date, 1890, the period of his first and best practical
energies, much at heart, is certain, nor did I then suspect him of
working, as he did so flagrantly later, less for the good of Egypt than
in English political and financial interests. It is, however, necessary
to remark that, in spite of his promises of assistance and the undoubted
good faith of Riaz Pasha on the drink question, nothing at all was
ever done to protect these villages from the Greek intruders, who ply
their trade in them unchecked to the present day. Their case was as
strong a one as could well have been brought forward, for it was one
where the demand for alcohol needed to be created in the midst of a
totally abstaining population, and it worked the ill results we foresaw.
The drink shops were put under regulations good enough in their way,
but the sale was not suppressed, and like many another regulation in
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36 Talks with Zeyd [1890
Egypt where no advantage of revenue was concerned, they were not
insisted on; energy in introducing them, however sincere at the outset,
soon slackened, and the regulations became a dead letter.
I will add to this, because they are amusing, a couple of extracts from
my diary, conversations I put down in it, with Zeyd, my Bedouin horse
master, of the Muteyr tribe in Nejd, as I was riding with him on two
occasions on the desert edge in the evening that winter. They have an
interest worth preserving, as they show the way the Arabs of Arabia
think in contrast to the Egyptian fellahin whom they come in contact
with during their visits to Cairo, a contrast which has a significance in
view of the political developments we have witnessed in these last
years.
" Zeyd. The fellahin are a timid folk, if they see a cat cross their
path after dark they think it an afrit, they believe in all manner of
foolish things.
"/. What then? Are there no o/nV^ in Nejd?
'^ Zeyd. Wallah! The belief in afrits is foolishness. There are no
afrits, neither in Nejd nor here. But the fellahin have no heart. They
are without blood. They are afraid.
"I. You are a philosopher. Do all in Nejd think like you?
^' Zeyd. The men of Nejd have brave hearts. They are used to
being alone. They journey alone through the desert, ten days, twenty
days, forty days perhaps. They know nothing of afrits. There is none
other but God.
"/. Truly none. But do they see nothing?
" Zeyd. They fear nothing. There is of course Shaitan, who some-
times appears to them in the likeness of a goat or a cow. But they are
not afraid. He does not harm them.
"I. And do they speak to him?
'^ Zeyd. Shaitan will sometimes journey with them in disguise.
There was once a man of Bereydah who was riding his delul alone in a
storm. There was lightning amid the darkness. He heard a voice in
front of him asking what he was doing there in such tempestuous
weather, and if he was not afraid. A flash revealed to him the figure
of a sheep set on the neck of his camel. It was Shaitan, who was
speaking to frighten the man. The man, however, put out his hand
and caught the sheep by the fleece, saying, ' I know you are a sheep by
your wool.' But Shaitan answered, 'And you. I know you are a
sheep by your wits ! ' and he slid down the camel's neck to the ground
and disappeared.
'' /. Yet you do not believe in afrits.
" Zeyd. No. That is a vulgar superstition.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
"/. What is this to the right of us? A tomb?
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1890] The Philosophy of Superstition 37
" Zeyd. Ay, verily. The tomb of a saint. The fellahin have a
hundred thousand saints. They are a credulous people. They kill
sheep for Abu Seriyeh still, though he has been dead a thousand years.
" /. And we, too, killed a sheep when we went on the pilgrimage to
Abu Seriyeh three years ago.
" Zeyd. Yes, to bring a blessing on your camels. And one of your
camels died within the year. How can a Sheykh, a holy man who has
been dead so long, help any one, beast or man?
"/. This, too, is philosophy.
''Zeyd. No. It is truth. An uncle or a grandfather, I can under-
stand that one should give them a sheep, but not to Abu Seriyeh. This
land is full of the tombs of holy men. The fellahin are a credulous
people.
♦ * ♦ «
''Zeyd. This road from Kafr el Shorafa to the bridge, how often
I used to think of it when I was journeying from Syria with! the
S^lawi horse, the grey Seglawi, and the Jilfa mare. I used to ask
of God that he would grant me this, that I might ride along the sand
just here with them in safety. And see, I arrived with them and rode
along this very road.
"/. Thank God.
" Zeyd. Yes, thank God. There is no word it does one more good
to say than this, * thank God,' when a danger is past. El hamdu Vlllah;
el hamdul rillahr'
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Another conversation of nearly the same date has the additional
interest that it concerns a mission I had sent him on the year before, to
purchase a stallion for me from the Anazeh in Northern Arabia.
"Zeyd. I will tell you how I bought the Seglawi [this was the
stallion *Azrek,' see General Stud Book], I did not, of course, tell
them the truth, that I was the servant of the Bey (meaning me).
There is no shame in this. It is policy {siasa). I am a master of
policy. I made a deceit. I said to them that I was of the Agheylat,
looking for horses for India, horses from the north and tall ones, for
those are the horses that bring most price in India. What did I want
with the pure bred ? I wanted to make money. And so I went to the
Sebaa. I alighted at Ibn ed Derri's tent, as it were by accident. But
I made a mistake. It was not the tent of Mishlab Ibn ed Derri, but
of his brother Fulan (the name Fulan is used as we say So-and-So).
There are four brothers. Fulan and Fulan and Fulan and Mishlab.
Mishlab was the owner of the Seglawi. I stayed there for three days,
without speaking of the Seglawi. The horse was at pasture and I
did not see him. On the fourth day came Mishlab to breakfast with
his brother, and they killed a lamb — and behold the Seglawi was with
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38 Zeyd Purchases a Horse [1890
him — he did not bring him to sdl, but, as the custom is with strangers,
that I might see him. He stood tethered outside the tent, but I did
not even turn his way. Only lifting up my eyes stealthily, I saw him,
and the sight of his forehead and of his eyes gave me joy. For you
know the Seglawi's face is of those which, if a man, a sorrowful man,
sees, he needs must rejoice. Only it made my heart beat terribly, and
I said to myself, * Zeyd must never more return to the Bey — he must
die — if he do not obtain that horse.' Then, after we had eaten, I
arose as one who wishes to go outside for a private purpose; and I
walked past the S^lawi with my face to the ground as though I did
not see him, and hardly putting one foot before the other, like a thief.
And when I returned Mishlab was alone with his son Sakr in the
tent, and we talked of the buying of horses. And I told them of my
desire of tall horses for the Indian market.
•' And after a while I said to the father that I had something that I
should wish to speak to him of in private — for I knew that his son
would not consent to the sale, seeing that it was he who received the
money of the Arabs when their mares were served, and I knew, too,
that the father was displeased at this. All that is customary is that
those who bring mares should also bring flour for the stallion, and it
may be a kiswah (a complimentary robe), but not money. But Sakr
had taken money, to his father's displeasure. So I said to the young
man, when we had gone outside, * On Salameh, stay you here on one
side, for I have something to speak of with your father. And you may
watch us, and, if you see me strike your father, then come to his as-
sistance, but if I do not raise my hand to him, then wait till we have
finished, for it is not necessary you should hear.' And to my friend
who was with me, I told him to take his spear, and sent him on another
errand to fetch my dromedary.
" Then when we were alone, I said to Mishlab : * O Mishlab, it is
time I went on my business, for I am engaged in the purchase of horses.
But before I go I would see your horse. I cannot buy him, for I am
looking only for horses from the North at a low price, but yours, the
Seglawi, would I see. For I am of the Muteyr and you are of the
Sebaa, and I am a master of fortune (sdhib el bukht), and you are a
master of fortune, and it would be a shame that I did not name a price
or put a value on him, for otherwise, you might think that I did not
know his worth.' And Mishlab said, ' So be it.' And I named £100,
as if it were a great price. And when I had named it, I saw that
Mishlab put his hand under his kefiyeh to scratch his head and stroke
his beard. And at last he spoke : * Nay, it would be a sin.' And I
pressed him, for I saw by his manner that he was in doubt, and I
could hardly believe in my fortune that there should be a hope of his
consenting. And again my heart beat so that you might hear it. And
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at last I said, as if rising to go, ' There shall be another ten added to
the hundred.' And I gave him my hand, and he gave me his hand.
And I said, ' O Mishlab, listen. The Seglawi is the Seglawi, and the
men of the tribe send their mares to you on his account. But he is
but flesh and blood, and a shot might destroy him, and then where
would be the £110?' And he said, * If it were not for my son's ill
doing, I would not do it. And I do not want money, for God has
blessed me with many camels and I have all I need. But I fear that
Sakr will bring disgrace on me, for he takes money for the mares,
which thing is forbidden; and I fear lest my good fortune should
fail me.'
" And so it was settled in that one talking, and immediately I called
for my delul, and having given him the advance money (arbun), I
begged him to send his son with me to Aleppo to receive the full price.
And I mounted in haste, fearing that the rest would return and would
make hip change his mind."
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CHAPTER III
BRIGANDAGE IN EGYPT
The summer of 1890 I spent in large part at Paris with Lytton at
the Embassy, and was one of the most delightful in my experience, but
it contained little of a political nature or that can be repeated here.
Our talks were mainly of literature, and more especially of dramatic
literature, on which he was just then engaged, the detail of his official
work being left principally to his staff, though I would not be under-
stood to mean that he was a mere figurehead. As Ambassador, on the
contrary, his political influence at Paris was greater than that of his
predecessor. Lord Lyons. With all the tatter's dignity and discretion
and solid good sense, he had never succeeded in obtaining any kind of
popularity, and in his time the relations between France and England
had become the reverse of cordial. L)rtton, however, by the very
qualities which had proved his defects when in India, had obtained an
immediate personal success at Paris, and had in large measure restored
the international good feeling. His literary Bohemianism and lack of
pomposity, his devotion to the stage, his ready patronage of artists,
actors, and those littirateurs who count for so much in Paris journal-
ism, had been a passport for him to favour with the Press, and through
the Press to public opinion. L)rtton was by taste a Bohemian, and
Paris, which is also so largely Bohemian, recognized him as a brother
artist. It was impossible to regard him as representative of the
morgue britannique, of which not only Lord Lyons but Lord Cowley
before him had been such notable examples. Treated with a light
hand, many a difficult question was in his time easily circumvented, if
not permanently solved, and this at the expense of no real dignity. It
was felt that he wished well to Frenchmen and French views of life,
and that was sufficient.
In the intervals of my Paris visits I find notices of my life in Eng-
land, showing that I, too, had learned to take life more lightly than in
previous years. I busied myself not at all with parliamentary politics,
and even about Ireland I ceased to take any absorbing interest. The
prospects of Home Rule were better assured just then in all appearance
than they had been since Gladstone's defeat in 1886. The result of the
great " Times " prosecution had been a notable victory for the National-
40
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1890] The Crabbet Club 41
ists, and had re-established Paraeirs character as a responsible states-
man at a higher point than ever before in English eyes, so that it was
confidently expected that at the next general election Gladstone would
be returned to power with a majority sufficient to overcome the opposi-
tion of the House of Lords, and carry his Home Rule Bill into law.
It was, therefore, with a free conscience that I led an idle life at home,
writing my verses and enjoying social pleasures in the company of my
friends. It was in that summer that the Crabbet Club, which was to
acquire a certain social celebrity, was established on a footing which
was to gain for it a character almost of importance. It will not be
out of place, seeing that our memoir writers of the day have included
it, or rather have not left it unnoticed in their recollections, if I say a
few words here as to what it really was.
The Crabbet Club was in its origin a purely convivial gathering,
unambitious of any literary aim. It began in this way : When George,
Lord Pembroke (the 13th Earl) came of age in 1871, having been a
very popular boy at Eton, with many school friends, and afterwards at
Oxford, he thought it would be amusing to continue in some measure
the life they had led by having them to stay with him once or twice
every summer at Wilton, for a day or two at a time, to play cricket,
and row on the river, and otherwise divert themselves, and they took
the name of the " Wilton,'^ or " Wagger " Club, and it proved a great
success. In 1876, though much older than the rest of the members, I
was asked to join it as one who had known the Herberts from their
school days. Pembroke was staying with me at Crabbet, and his two
brothers and their sister Gladys (afterwards Lady Ripon), and several
of their friends, and several of mine, and I drove them all to Epsom
for the Derby (Silvio's year), and we had a cricket match and a lawn
tennis handicap (lawn tennis was in the process of being invented, and
we played on a court 20 feet longer than what afterwards became the
regulation length), and it was on this occasion that I joined the club.
The party at Crabbet had proved such a success that the next year it
was proposed that the club should make one of its regular meetings
there, and so it gradually came about that the members came to Crabbet
annually. The members of the club were never more than a few, a
dozen to twenty, and consisted, besides the Herbert brothers, of Eddy
Hamilton, who was afterwards Gladstone's private secretary. Lord
Lewisham, Jocelyn Amherst, Granny Farquhar, Lionel Bathurst, with
Harry Brand (afterwards Lord Hampden), Nigel Kingscote, Godfrey
Webb, Button Bourke, Frank Lascelles, Mark Napier, and half-a-
dozen more of my own intimates, and these came regularly to Crabbet
every summer, and we gradually adopted the " Crabbet Club " as the
name of our branch.
Though we professed no kind of politics, and looked to amusement
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42 Reconstruction of Crabbet Club [1890
only, nearly all the members of it were Tories, two or three of them in
Parliament, and when in 1882 I took the somewhat violent line I did
about Egypt and war ensued, several of the members taking offence
ceased their attendance, and the Club as far as the Crabbet meetings
were concerned became less popular, and this state of things was
aggravated when I stood for Parliament as a Home Ruler in 1885 and
1886, and it was all but submerged by my imprisonment at Galway.
Hardly any of the old Wilton members would answer the invitations
to it, and Pembroke himself, the most tolerant of men, as an Irish
landlord with large interests at stake in the county of Dublin, felt it
a grievance that I should have identified myself with the Land League
and the Plan of Campaign. All this was natural enough, and I could
not complain of the defection. The Club as the " Crabbet Club " was
still continued, but reconstructed on different fines with a number of
young men, Oxford undergraduates, most of them professing Home
Rule opinions. The chief of these were the two Peels, Willy and
George, sons of the Speaker, Arthur Pollen, Herbert Vivian, Leo
Maxse, Percy Wyndham (son of Sir Hugh), Theodore Fry, Theobald
Mathew, Artie Brand, and Loulou Harcourt, the only three of the old
set being Mark Napier, Eddy Hamilton, and Nigel Kingscote.
The young men thus got together, most of them fresh from the Uni-
versities, though also bent on amusement, had tastes more intellectual
than their predecessors, and besides our lawn tennis handicaps, we had
much after-dinner speaking, and a verse competition with the election
of a poet laureate for the year. The Club was in this condition when
in 1889 George Wyndham, becoming a member, took it in hand, and
seeing its intellectual capabilities brought new blood into it by intro-
ducing friends of his own, already holding a certain position in the
political world, and who have since no few of them climbed to fame.
Among these were George Curzon, Harry Cust, Houghton (now Lord
Crewe), Frederick Locker, Umphreville Swinburne, cousin of the poet,
St. George Lane Fox, Eddy Tennant, Laurence Currie, George Leveson
Gower, Esme Howard, Elcho, Dick Grosvenor, Alfred Douglas, Charles
Gatty, Morpeth, and his brother Hubert Howard, and on a single oc-
casion Oscar Wilde, and it was in the company of these that our meet-
ings of the early nineties were held. They were really brilliant meet-
ings, with post-prandial oratory of the most amusing kind, and were
productive of verse of a quite high order. The number of the members
was limited to twenty, and there was much competition when a vacancy
occurred. The poetry of the Crabbet Qub has been preserved in print,
and is one of the curiosities of literature, deserving a place, I venture
to think, in company with the best verse of a not serious kind, including
even perhaps that of the Mermaid Tavern. My own part in these
meetings, which were essentially convivial, was that of Chairman and
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President, an anomalous one seeing that I was a teetotaller, but which
yet worked well.
The latter half of the summer of 1890 was darkened for me by the
final illness and death of my cousin, Francis Currie. He had been
my Mentor, not always in the ways of wisdom, during my youth at
Paris, and had remained there a constant and very dear friend for
close on thirty years. On my visit to Paris in the Spring I had found
him ill with an ominous cough, and other symptoms of a decline, but
his French doctor, whom I consulted about him, persisted in declaring
that it was nothing more than the legacy of a fever he had long before
contracted in India while serving in the campaign of the Mutiny, and
encouraged him to go for change of air to the Alps, though to my eye,
and to that of his faithful bonne Julienne he was already " un homme
frappe/' Now, however, soon after my return to the Paris Embassy
in July, I learned that he was at Aix les Bains, and, as it seemed, in an
aknost hopeless state. This broke short my stay at Paris, and took
me first to Aix, and then moving him away from the great heat there
to Glyon in Switzerland, where, a month later, in spite of our care, he
died. The history of those few weeks, as of the rest of the summer
of 1890, belongs, if ever I write it, to my most private memoirs.
On the 18th of October we again left England for Egypt, spending
three more weeks on our way with the Lyttons at Paris, and then on by
Marseilles to Alexandria and Sheykh Obeyd, where we once more spent
the winter. The political position in Egypt at this time was as follows :
Riaz Pasha was still in office under the Khedive Tewfik, and the
provinces of Lower Egypt, laxly ruled, were much disturbed with
brigandage, especially in our immediate neighbourhood. Riaz, who at
that time was working with the Khedive in secret opposition to Baring
and the British Occupation, allowed the brigandage to continue, with
the idea that it would serve as a proof of the unpopularity of the Eng-
lish rigime and its powerlessness to preserve order. Baring was oc-
cupied now almost exclusively with the stru^le to make both ends of
Eg3rptian finance meet, being convinced on his side that a prosperous
balance sheet was the best argument he could use with the British
public in favour of retaining Egypt as a permanent British dependency.
In this he was supported by Lord Salisbury at the Foreign Office, who
had made up his mind, now that the Wolff Convention for a withdrawal
of the British garrison had failed, to stay on in military occupation
without any legal settlement of England's position on the Nile. It was
argued Aat the legal road to such a settlement had been barred by the
Sultan, who, when the Convention had been agreed to, had withheld his
signature of ratification. Though I did not know it at the time, our
Queen (Victoria) had taken the Sultan's action as a personal slight,
seeing that she had affixed her own royal signature in ratification
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44 Milner in Egypt [1890
before the Sultan's refusal, nor is it possible to say that she was without
justification in feeling the matter strongly. In accordance with this,
Baring was beginning those changes in the fiscal and administrative
domain which were intended to transfer all real power in Egjrpt, little
by little, from the Turco-Circassian class represented by Riaz which he
had hitherto patronized, into his own. The new policy, however, was
as yet only in embryo, and the intention of remaining in Egypt was not
avowed. It was impossible to do so openly, not only through the fear
of trouble with France, but also because Liberal opinion in England
was not prepared for it, and unless it could be converted to the idea
before the next general election, which was to take place in 1892, it
was always possible that Gladstone, coming once more into power,
might suddenly reverse the whole process of absorption, and without
further waiting recall the troops from Cairo.
It was with this fear before his eyes that Baring had obtained the
services in Eg3rpt of Alfred Milner, a journalist of distinction, the
same whom I had known in 1884 as sub-editor of the " Pall Mall
Gazette " under Stead (see " Gordon at Khartoum "), and who, a year
later, had been taken on by Goschen as his private secretary. It was
through Goschen's recommendation that Baring gave him a place in
Egypt of ii,ooo a year at the Ministry of Finance, nominally for ad-
ministrative work, but in reality with a mission of organizing a press
campaign in London in favour of a continuance of the Egyptian occupa-
tion. For this work no man could have been better chosen. He was
nominally a Liberal, and had stood as a supporter of Gladstone at the
general election of 1885, while his experience in Northumberland Street
had put him in touch with all the chief writers of the English Liberal
press. No man better than he knew the length of the English electoral
foot. At Cairo, without appearing personally in his journalistic char-
acter, he knew how to bring the case he had to firgue forward by en-
couraging the various Englishmen officially employed there to write
articles in the monthly magazines and elsewhere in praise, not of their
own, but of their fellow-administrator's achievements in the way of
reform, knowing well that if it could be proved that Egypt, instead of
a burden on the British Exchequer, was becoming a paying concern,
the battle would be won with the new government, should a Liberal one
come into office, even with Mr. Gladstone. And so, in fact, it hap-
pened. The appearance of Milner's very able volume, "England in
Egjrpt,'* in which he drew together all these threads of argument in
lucid and attractive form, and which was published a few months be-
fore the general election of 1892, effected, as I will show later, exactly
the object aimed at. Milner's reward for this service was not delayed.
The same year he was relieved from his nominal functions in Egypt,
and given the important place at home of Chairman of the Inland
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1891] Baring Not Opposed to Reform 45
Revenue Board. I saw him pretty frequently at Cairo during his stay
there, and liked him, as I had liked him when in his humbler position
as Stead's assistant editor. He did not display, at that time, anything
of that violent Imperialism which led him later to aspire to the sublime
heights of Tory officialdom which he now occupies.
This was the position in Egypt in the early spring of 1891. I was
now on excellent terms with Baring, whom I found willing to listen
to any suggestions I might make to him for improving the lot of the
fellahin, a matter which I understood, while he, shut up in his office
and seeing practically nothing of native Egypt beyond the tame officials
whom he had attracted to his camp, lived in comparative darkness, and
I was able in this way to effect a good deal in the direction that most
interested me, and I did not fail to bring before him once more the
case of Arabi's return; but he was still too strongly opposed to it,
though, he explained, if it was decided to occupy ^|ypt permanently
he should have no objection. Failing in this, as far as Arabi was
concerned, I now limited my pleading to an attempt to interest him in
other members of the former National Party, and at the suggestion of
my old friend, Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, who was now living in my
part of Egypt as judge of our chief country town, Benha, and whom
we now saw pretty frequently, I brought before him a plan that he
should take these old Nationalists into his councils and substitute for
the Circassian Pashas who had so far been the only class of Moham-
medans permitted to hold office under the restored regime since Tel-el-
Kebir, an Egyptian fellah government. Neither Riaz, nor Nubar, nor
any other of the ministers who had held office during the past seven
years, though patriotic some of them to the extent of having it for their
aim to get rid of all foreign elements in the administration, had taken
any real interest in bettering the condition of the fellahin, and it seemed
to me a lack of intelligence on Baring's part that he had failed to under-
stand the popularity he might have gained by the creation of a fellah
ministry, and the comparative ease with which he could have introduced
the reforms he professed to have at heart, and really at that time had.
I find this alluded to in my diary :
*'2o^A Feb. — A few days ago, there being a ministerial crisis, I
wrote to Baring suggesting that he should take new men into the
ministry instead of Riaz and the Circassians, who, despising the fel-
lahin, look only to their own class interests. He answered me favour-
ably, and to-day I called on him, and after luncheon we discussed the
position. Riaz has already given in, so nothing is to be done at present ;
but he expressed himself willing to make the acquaintance of any men
of the fellah class whose names I could suggest, and I am* to write to
him again on the subject in a few days. He fully admitted that Riaz
was an obstructive ; * but where/ he said, ' is there anyone better? ' It
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46 / Suggest a Fellah Ministry [1891
was a doubtful question whether it was possible to put Mohammedans
on any road of reform. I said : * If you give tip that hope you give
up everything, but you have not tried the Liberal party to help you in
reforms/ He said he 'was quite willing. If the National party in
1882 had not allied itself with the army it might have been supported.'
' That was the fault/ I said, * of the Joint Note.' He agreed that ' the
Joint Note was a mistake,' and, I think, was impressed with what I
said, and we parted on the understanding that I was to give him the
names of persons I thought able to afford him political help, but he
enjoined on me complete secrecy. ' I will take some opportunity,* he
said, * of making their acquaintance, but there is a difficulty sometimes
in my seeing the people.' I shall wait until Hassan Pasha Sherei re-
turns from Upper Egypt, and then see if we cannot make out a fellah
Cabinet together." I have a few letters which passed between me and
Baring at this time. They are of importance as showing that the policy
of introducing reforms through native Egyptians of the Mohommedan
Reform Party was laid before Sir Evelyn Baring, and its advantages
more or less acknowledged by him full fifteen years before he, as Lord
Cromer, adopted it as the only one which could give a hope of making
self-government in Egypt possible. (See his Reports for the year
1905.)
Our life at Sheykh Obeyd that Spring was not without incident, as
our immediate neighbourhood was disturbed almost nightly by gangs
of robbers, who visited the country houses round, breaking into them
in the night time and coming in armed conflict with such of the owners
as resisted them. The bands were composed principally of Bedouins,
with whom were associated certain refugees from Upper Egypt and a
few broken men escaped from the prisons at Toura, but the direction
of them was in Bedouin hands. For this reason we, who were on
good terms with the tribes, were left unmolested, though every one
of our near neighbours suffered. This is from my diary :
" 7th March, — Last night at half -past twelve I heard a great noise
of dogs barking, and occasional shots. I went out on to the balcony
and listened, and was about to go to bed again, for the guards have a
habit of firing without reason in the night to show they are awake, when
I heard cries, and I called to Deyf Allah, our head ghaffir, and asked
him what it was. He answered, 'there are robbers at Selim Bey's.'
I consequently dressed hastily and ran down, having first awakened
Anne, and taking my Winchester rifle and a revolver sallied forth, fol-
lowed by Deyf Allah and Mahmud the Berberin. It was a dark night
and I held my rifie ready to fire as we went through the palm grove
where I thought I saw one or two people moving. As we got near to
Selim Faraj's house (a quarter of a mile from ours) the noise of the
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1891] A Night Attack by Robbers 47
dogs increased and mixed with it there were groans, while occasional
shots were still being fired at a distance. I went cautiously up to the
house where I met an Arab with whom I exchanged greetings. He was
probably one of Selim's guards. At the door lay a fellah groaning with
his head cut open. There was a light at the window, and women b^an
to scream. On my coming close they told me they had been robbed,
and I found the window bars wrenched open. Presently Selim ap-
peared at the door [he was a County Court Judge, a Syrian Christian]
his face a coagulated mass of blood, and he let me in and told me the
history of what had happened. There had been a noise of knocking at
his door, and on his opening it, thinking it was the guard, he received
a blow from a nabout (a quarter staff) on his shoulder, but managed
to slip back inside and bar the door. Then a ntunber of men attacked
the house, calling on him to open, and on his refusal they broke through
the windows, while he struck at them with a meat chopper, but they
pushed him back and got through, six of them, and called for his
money. He proposed to them to pay next day, but they declined to
wait and broke open his chests of drawers and made search. While this
was going on, he hid with his little girl in the scullery, but later issued
out again to defend his property, and received three wounds on his
head with some sharp instrument. Then the robbers, having found
the money they were looking for in his pockets, £37, and hearing me
coming, for there was a cry of ' tarbush,' their watchword for the
police, decamped. The wounded fellah was a servant whom they had
cut down outside with their nabouts, but nobody paid him the least
attention, and I had great difficulty in getting him carried inside the
house. The ladies begged me to stay on with them, but I refused, as
I had my own people to look after, and so went back, and nothing
further happened till daybreak. On my return in the morning I found
Selim in bed, and heard his story again. The men, he said, were nearly
naked, but had their faces masked. They spoke the Mogrebbin dialect.
They were Arabs of the West. I then went with Sheykh Hassan Abu
Tawil, the chief of our local Arabs and a tracker, and we followed the
track of seven men, which was very distinct in the sand, running
towards Matarieh. When within a quarter of a mile of the railway
station there, they had sat down and then separated, one who had been
wearing shoes going to the ostrich farm, the rest towards the tents of
Prince Ahmed Pasha's guard. It is generally thought that they are
local people, though Abu Tawil insists they are Mogrebbins, who once
lived near the Obelisk (of Heliopolis), and come back every year to
rob. One of them had enormous footprints, probably a Negro. I
have taken Selim Bey into Cairo, first to Baring, who, however, was too
busy to see him, and then on with a note from him to Baker Pasha,
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4? Proposed FeOah Ministry [1891
the English Chief of Police, an old military fogey whom I worked up
into unwonted action by telling him that the state of the country was
worse than cither Greece or Asia Minor."
The curious part of this episode, though I do not find it in my diary,
was Selim Bey's attitude in the affair. He was a native Christian
Judge, and had been a man of the law all his life, but it was with the
greatest difficulty that I could persuade him to report the attack made
on him to the police. " It would only put me on bad terms with the
neighbours," he said, worse than those he was already on, for he was
very unpopular, and it was only on my declaring that I would myself
report it that he consented to go in with me to Cairo.
" 14th March, — The attack on Selim Bey has made a stir and his
house is guarded by the regular police. The Mudir has been there and
Baker Pasha. They have made nine or ten arrests, among them the
two Ghaffirs. Poor old Eid, our bowab (gatekeeper), being one of
them. I found him sitting disconsolately among the prisoners with his
little child he is so fond of. I am sorry I troubled myself in the
matter, for I do not believe one of the arrested men had anything to
do with the fcusiness, but this is the fourth serious case round about us
in eighteen months, and last time they killed a man, and a woman died
of fright. Selim Bey's wound is rather serious, and the servant may yet
die; he is in hospitd. The Mudir took from me a deposition, but it
was very meagre, and I had a difficulty in preventing the insertion in it
of things quite untrue."
This affair put an end for the time to the night attacks. I came to
the conclusion later that the tolerance the bands had so long enjoyed
had been due to Riaz' tacit complicity joined to Baker's muddle-headed
incapacity (he was replaced soon afterwards). I took advantage of it
to draw a moral for Baring, and wrote a letter to him recapitulating my
arguments in favour of a fellah government, sending him a list of the
names of men of the fellah party who might make up a Reform Min-
istry. The list was drawn up in consultation with Sheykh Mohammed
Abdu and Mohammed Moelhi. These are the names :
Hassan Pasha Sherei of Minieh.
Baligh Bey.
Emin Bey Fikri.
Said Effendi Zaghloul.
Ahmed Effendi Mahmoud.
Ibrahim Effendi el Wakil.
Mahmud Bey Shukri.
Ahmed Bey Heshmet.
Yusuf Bey Shoki.
Sheykh Mohammed Abdu.
It is to be remarked that this list includes the name of Saad Zaghlgtil,
Digitized by
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1891] / Argue tvUh Baring 49
whom fifteen years later Cromer made Minister of Public Instruction,
as well as Sheykh Mohammed Abdu's, afterwards Grant Mufti, whom
he declared to be the chief hope of Liberal Islam in Egyt. Baring,
however, missed his real opportunity by n^lecting my recommenda-
tion of Hassan Sherei, who politically was of far greater weight than
any of them, and who had died before Baring could bring himself to
accepting a fellah Ministry. " Baring, however, answers : * I do not
think there is a ghost of a chance of the Khedive forming a fellah
Ministry.' Still Baring may come to it, as Riaz has been coquetting
with the French, and has brought about a fine diplomatic storm. Our
only policy is to wait the disappearance, one after the other, of the old
ministers, and sooner or later they must come to us if they do not
annex. Sherif is gone and Nubar, and now Riaz seems going.
"4th April. — To Cairo and saw Baring. I asked him first about
the drink shops, and he said that though he still hoped to be able to
issue his regulations, there was great opposition to these for political
reasons from the French ; the question of public security was much more
important ; it was a difficult job ; he should put an end to it in time, but
he hardly knew how; with regard to the native government it was
impossible to get men capable and honest ; things were going badly and
were leading to a new smash-up ; he had only to work on as he could.
I asked him what he thought would happen if we evacuated. He said
everything would go to smash, but we should not evacuate. I said we
might be obliged to do so if there was a change of government at
home. He said, * I shall protest against it, and, if it is insisted on, I
wash my hands of the consequences.' I said, *It is impossible you
should not be responsible if you do nothing to prepare for it.' He
said, 'They are all alike (meaning the Egyptians). I know most of
the men you wrote of.' 'And Hassan Sherei?' I asked. 'No, not
Hassan Sherei, but they are all alike.' He said, ' The Khedive is in
favour of reform.' ' Yes, as long as he thinks you stronger than the
French, but if England were forced to evacuate, you would see how
soon he would go over.' * I daresay. My experience of Easterns is
all that way, but we shall not evacuate; we shall have a war with
France.' I reminded him of our conversation of 1883, when I told
him he could make nothing of Tewfik and the Circassians. He said,
' Whom would you have had ? There would only have been Halim, and
it would have been the same thing. At any rate, it is too late now to
change.' And so we parted."
All this is of interest now as showing how little reality there was in
the excuse so commonly made for the breach of our declarations that
we were going to leave Egypt, and that our remaining on there was
thrust upon us against our will. It was only true in the sense that it
was impossible to leave Egypt and at the same time remain its lords
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50 Naples and Rome [1891
and masters politically ; only one way was really possible, and that we
always refused to take, to restore the National party with its liberal
ideas, and thus earn its gratitude and confidence. Eg3rpt might then
have remained, not a dependency of the British Empire, but its very
good friend and the faithful guardian of the route by the Suez Canal
to India. The mistake made on this head by Baring was among the
many causes that led, as I shall show, to England^s being obliged to
take part in the quarrel between France and Germany in the great
war of 1914. Lord Cromer's obstinacy on this point was a misfortune.
Another was the unlooked-for secession which occurred that spring of
Lord Randolph Churchill from the counsels of the Tory party at home.
Churchill had, ever since 1882, been a powerful advocate with Lord
Salisbury of Egypt's claim to a restoration of her independence so
unwisely taken from her in that year, and his quarrel now with his
party left my advocacy of Egyptian liberty without support at the
Foreign Office of effective Cabinet kind.
We left Sheykh Obeyd for Europe in April, taking Rome again on
our way home and Paris.
" 23rd April 1891. — Landed at Naples this morning, having finished
a letter yesterday to Lord Salisbury about Egyptian affairs, and I hope
he may pay the attention to it it deserves.
" Having seen our things through the custom house we drove to
Agnano and the Grotto del Cane. The lake which used to be the
beauty of the place has been dried up these twenty years by a French
company, which thought to find the ancient Roman town but found
nothing; their operations have left a desolation hideous to the eye.
How horrible civilized man is. All day the spectacle of these Neapoli-
tans in their modern slop clothes has been to me a nightmare; all
nature is defiled by them. What countenances of filthy passions ! what
abominations to the senses! what foul rubbish heaps! what stenches!
We looked into the Grotto del Cane where criminals they say were
cast in the days of Nero. It must have been a merciful death ; witness
the custode's little dog which has * died daily ' there for sixteen years
and still wags its tail at each new performance. A nightingale was
singing, the only thing quite in harmony with the beauty of the sky
and hills. Later we saw the young Duke, the heir to the Italian throne,
a small timid-faced young man, very unlike the House of Savoy of
which he is to be the head. The prince is physically unimposing,
though on horseback he looks well enough.
''At Rome, 24th April. — To Monsignor Stonor's, who showed me a
huge correspondence he has been having with O'Shea on the subject
of a libel committed on him by Dr. McCormack, Bishop of Galway,
O'Shea having appealed to the Pope. There was one specially interest-
ing letter he gave me to read. It related to Pamdl's doings with
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1891] The French Defeat at Tonkin 51
Chamberlain in 1885, and his acceptance of a local government scheme,
also to the part played by O'Shea, Dr. O'Dwyer, and Cardinal Manning
in the appointment of Dr. Walsh to the Archbishopric of Dublin. They
had all, according to the letter, guaranteed Dr. Walsh as a sound
champion of law and order. ' Law and Order,' however, meant an-
other thing in 1885 from what it has meant since. Monsignor Stonor
says that Cardinal Moran was already appointed to Dublin and on his
way from Australia to Rome, when his nomination was reversed and
Dr. Walsh appointed instead. He laments now the ignorance of the
Vatican, which sees in Ireland only a faithful Catholic land oppressed
by a Foreign Government. I am staying on at the Minerva, Anne and
Judith having gone home straight from Naples.
" 2Sth April. — To the Irish College where I saw my old friend the
Monsignore Rector, who spoke despondingly of Ireland, pra)dng only
that God's will might be done. Not so Prior Glyn and Archbishop
Walsh whom I next saw. They are very confident of beating Parnell
out of Ireland, and winning the English elections (next year) ; if not
they agree that the cause of Home Rule is hopeless, for Irish America
would not continue to support a parliamentary struggle, but would fall
back on secret societies and assassination. Dr. Walsh estimates
Pamell's party in Ireland after the elections at sixteen out of a total
of eighty Home Rule Members. Prior Glyn's last words to me
were ^We shall meet again at College Green when the Parliament is
opened.'
" 28th April, — Called on Duff erin at the Embassy, who showed me
a number of drawings he had made in former times, including one of
his mother, done at Athens in the year of our first acquaintance, 1859.
He talked a good deal on Eastern subjects, but he skilfully avoided
politics, making it clear that he wished the visit to be one of friendship
only."
At Paris I stayed four days, principally with the Lyttons, the talk of
the day being of the French failure at Tonkin.
" 30th April. — To a coiffeur in the Rue de la Paix to be trimmed and
washed and combed after the fashion of the country. The man who
attended me was very voluble, having been a soldier in Tonkin and a
blood-thirsty one to boot, by his own showing. ' Ah, Monsieur,' he
exclaimed, * quel gouvernement que le notre, un gouvernement qui ne
sait rien faire marcher. Figurez vous qu'on vous envoie des civils
pour gouvemer la Colonic, des hommes de science qui s'imaginent que
tons les hommes sont f reres. Ce n'est pas cele qu'il faut a la Colonie,
en agissant avec des brutes il faut etre brutal. Si j 'avals ete nomme
gouvemeur pendant un mois seulement, j'aurais extermin6 tout ce
monde Tonquinois. II faut les assommer. Monsieur, comme fait le
gouvernement Anglais aux Indes. Voili un gouvernement qui a la
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52 Labauchere on Gladstone [1891
main raide ; c'«st ce qu^il f audrait a nos colonies.' He asked me whether
I was not of his opinion. I said, ' Perhaps not quite.' "
On my arrival a few days later in London I had a momentary hope
about Egypt, seeing it announced in the "Times" (13th May) that
the Riaz Ministry had resigned. I had heard the news the night before
from Rivers Wilson, and was full of hope that the new men who, the
" Times " said, were to take their place would be of the Fellah Party,
but the hope was speedily dispelled, as it proved to be merely a shifting
of places, no single member of the new Ministry being of the National
Party or of the native fellah dass. Also Lord Salisbury, 21st May,
made a speech about Egypt, which seemed to exclude all thought of
preparing for evacuation. It put an end for a while to my pleading
for the Egyptian cause, except with my few political friends, Evelyn,
Labouchere, Auberon Herbert, and Sir Wilfrid Lawson. Soon after
this:
" 2nd June. — I saw Sir William Gregory in London, who was in-
teresting himself in the hoped-for return to Egypt of the Ceylon exiles.
We agreed that Lord Salisbury was hopeless, and that we had better
put Labouchere on our Egyptian business, so to Labouchere I went.
He has moved into a delightful house in Old Palace Yard exactly op-
posite the Houses of Parliament. I met him on the doorstep just
coming in from the House, in an old skull-cap which he wears instead
of hat, and he took me in to luncheon. We talked about Egypt, as
to which he has always been sounder than any other politician except
Randolph. I was glad to find that he was not prepared to evacuate
unconditionally, but intended, when the Liberals came into power, to
get Egypt neutralised, and I think he will serve us better than anyone
else can. ' If you have any influence with the French,' he said, * get
them to propose terms of neutralization.' I explained to him what the
position in Egypt was. He was very amusing about the actual state
of the Liberal party, * Gladstone in his dotage pulled this way by one
and that way by another. They don't expect a dissolution until next
year, but hope to keep the old man alive like the Tycoon of Japan, even
after he is dead.' All agree that there will be a general break up in
the party when Gladstone dies. Labouchere is looking old, he tells
me he is fifty-eight, but I trust he may last long enough some day to
lead his party."
With Lawson I had a long talk, June the 4th, and " found him nearly
as much a pessimist about the human race as I have become. In Eng-
land he looks to the advent of a really democratic parliament as a last
chance, beyond which, if it fails, there is nothing to hope." With
Morris, too, whom I again saw much of, I found the same political
despondency. He had just published his " News from Nowhere."
" The picture he draws in it of social communism is pretty, but he, too.
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1891] The Society of "The Souls" 53
is not very hopeful of its ever coming true. I am detennined now to get
on with my ' Secret History of the Invasion of Egypt,' so as to have it
ready for publication when Gladstone comes back to office. My old
friend, too, Eddy Hamilton, I saw. I found him occupying the ground
floor rooms of No. 10, Downing Street. His sitting room is that in
which the Cabinet Councils have always been held, and many a scurvy
decision been come to in the last hundred years." Hamilton was now
permanent official head of the Treasury, and the rooms had been lent
him by Lord Salisbury who did not occupy them. He was suffering,
however, with the disease, creeping paralysis, of which some years later
he died, and we did not talk much on Egypt or on politics. -
In my disappointment about Egypt I turned with redoubled zest to
my social pleasures of the year before, and at this time saw much of
that interestii^ group of clever men and pretty women known as the
" Souls,'* than whom no section of London Society was better worth
frequenting, including as it did all that there was most intellectually
amusing and least conventional. It was a group of men and women
bent on pleasure, but pleasure of a superior kind, eschewing the vul-
garities of racing and card-playing indulged in by the majority of the
rich and noble, and looking for their excitement in romance and senti-
ment. But this is not the place in which to describe the life we led,
though it well deserves being eternalized in print. It harmonized well
with my literary work, and the verses I was preparing for a new edi-
tion of the " Sonnets and Songs of Proteus." This William Morris
had proposed to print as one of the earliest volumes of the Kelmscott
Press, and I was much .with him in coimection with it.
*' loih June. — There is a great turmoil in the papers about Lord
Salisbury's Treaty or Agreement with Italy in 1887. It appears now
that King Humbert told Prince Napoleon about it, and at last it has
come out. This coincides with the change of policy in Egypt, and the
determination to remain there." [This Agreement, which has never
been officially admitted by our Foreign Office, related to an intended
seizure by Italy of Tripoli, and a promise that England would help
Italy if it led to a quarrel between her and France. The reality of the
agreement, however, has since been acknowledged by Crispi in his
Memoirs.]
To London in the evening and dined in Park Lane (a small dinner
arranged by George Wyndham, in which I was to meet Arthur Balfour
and bury the hatchet with him of our Irish quarrel). The party con-
sisted of George and his wife, Lady Clifden's daughter. Miss Ellis,
Mrs. Hardinge, Lord Edmund Talbot, Bo Grosvenor (Lord Ebury),
Charles Gatty, with Balfour and me. It was a pleasant party, and
after the ladies had left we stayed on talking till past one o'clock. I
had not met Balfour, since my Irish campaigning, and we did not talk
Digitized by
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54 London Adtdates Kaiser WUhelm [1891
politics, discussing instead literature, and especially the influence of
Arabia on the Middle Ages. Balfour was agreeable and the conversa-
tion brilliant, and he showed especial amiability to me as if to make
up for past severities, offering me a place in his brougham to go home
in when we went away. Why, indeed, should we quarrel? He has
mitigated his prison rigours in Ireland and I am aloof from politics.
*' nth July, — Arabi's case has been brought forward in Parliament
by Labouchere, and the Foreign Office answer is fairly satisfactory.
Ferguson says that the Government has uttered no non possumus about
the exiles, and is seeing what can be done.
" All the world is agog just now about the visit of the German Em-
peror to London, and the Liberals are just as absurd (in their adula-
tion) as the Tories. I met Justin McCarthy to-day in the street with
his son Huntiy, and walked some way with them. They were jubilant
about the Carlow election and Pamell's collapse, but Huntiy told me
he did not intend to come forward again in Parliament, but would
stick to literature. His talk about Egypt was quite in the Imperialistic
vein, justifying what I have always predicted that the Irish, once free,
would be more English than the English in enslaving the weaker na-
tions.
" i$th July. — To see Cardinal Manning, taking with me a basket of
roses from Crabbet for his birthday, of which I was reminded by
Hedgecock's remark in the morning that to-day was ' Swithums.* The
old man is less infirm, I thought, and we talked politics and literature.
He told me of two new poets, S)mions and Mrs. King. He is satisfied
with the way things are going in Ireland, and asked me what I thought
of the Pope's Labour Encyclical. It is, in truth, a rather colourless
pronouncement, saying too little.
"6fA Aug, — At Coombe, where I heard from Bertram Currie the
history of the Baring financial crisis, and the part he had played in
averting its being an absolute crash. The collapse was due to Revel-
stoke's having gambled outside the line of his ordinary business. He
had had his head turned by the million he had made over the Guinness
affair, and he had come to think that everything he touched must turn
to gold, and he went on to his ventures in South America, which let
him in. The House of Baring would have broken altogether if he,
Bertram, had not got the Bank of England to secure its liabilities for
a million and taken half a million himself and persuaded Lord Roths-
child as late as six o'clock in the evening to take another. The pros-
pects in South America are bad, as things there do not settle down and
Ned [Revelstoke] has only £500 a year settled income. [This was a
case that had made an immense sensation in the City. But the House
of Baring has happily survived it.]
**7th August. — Lunched at Kelmscott House when Mrs. Morris
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iSgi] Morris^ Kelmscott Press 55
took me to see the printing. Morris's own poems were being struck
oflF, most beautiful they are with their rubrics. The sheet I saw be-
ing printed contained the Ballad of John a Wood."
This also of nearly the same date relates to the Kelmscott Press.
" Had supper with Morris and his wife and her sister. Miss Burden,
and a Mr. Walker [Emery Walker], who helps in the printing work.
Morris was busy drawing a title-page for his ' Golden Legend ' and
there were some sheets of his new volume of poems, which is to be
tmiform with the volume he is printing for me. He was immensely
pleased when I told him that I had read his * News from Nowhere,'
and that Anne also had read it. He gave an amusing account of an
old house 'that that fellow Watts (the painter) had been daubing
over. But a coat of whitewash,' he said, ' would soon set that right.'
I told him in return about George Wyndham's visit to Swinburne at
Putney, a few months ago, when the other Watts, Theodore Watts-
Dunton, had insisted on talking politics with him instead of literature,
to George's disgust, and how it had ended in Watts reading out his
own poems instead of letting Swinburne read his. Watts, George
tells me, keeps Swinburne prisoner, as a keeper keeps a lunatic. He
had explained to George that some years ago he had found Swinburne
in bed, dying of what is called ' drunkard's diarrhoea,' and that having
got him round, he now considers Swinburne as his own property, and
treats him like a naughty boy, ' a case,' said George, ' for police inter-
ference.' Morris was greatly amused at this."
The month of September saw me in Scotland for a fortnight's
grouse shooting at Castle Menzies, which had been rented for the
season by my friends the Wagrams, where I had the advantage of
meeting a number of French royalists who were staying there to pay
their court to the Comte de Paris, who rented a moor close by, the
Broglies, the Jaucourts, and the Hautpouls, as well as Count Mens-
dorff, afterwards Austrian Ambassador in London. With these I
made friends, and also had more than one opportunity of seeing the
Comte and Comtesse de Paris and their beautiful daughter. Princess
Helene, who was at one time so nearly marrying the heir to our own
English throne, and who afterwards married the Duke of Aosta (I
had already met her once before at the Wagrams' )^. My diary de-
scribes the life led by these most worthy Pretenders to the throne of
France in their summer Highland home thus:
" 13^ Sept, Sunday, — We drove over to Loch Kinnaird, a lovely
place in a fir wood high up on the moors. The house is a wooden one
without any kind of pretension. The inside of varnished deal, no
upper story, no garden, and no attempt at beautifying inside or out.
There we found the Comte de Paris, a lean, bent, grisly-bearded man,
on the wrong side of middle age, undistinguished in appearance or
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manner, though courteous and amiable, difficult to recognize as the
descendant of French kings or the representative of divine right in the
world. His Queen, a masculine, plain woman.
"With them, the flower of their wilderness, Princesse Helene de
France et de Navarre, a tall, very tall, slight girl of immense charm
and distinction, whom I taught to play lawn tennis at Castle Menzies
three years ago. She remembered it well and was very nice to me in
her greeting. She poured out tea for us, and we all sat down to it, a
regular meal in the dining-room. The little conversation I had with
the Comte de Paris was only about shooting." I saw them again on the
iSth, when they came to Castle Menzies for a great chasse of blue
hares on Shehallion. " It was close opposite ShehaUion on the tops
of the hills, and to these the hares were driven, poor timorous beasts
of the blue mountain kind. We got four hundred of them, a terrible
massacre. The party consisted of the Comte and Comtesse de Paris,
with three French gentlemen of their suite, of Wagram, the Prince de
Broglie, Lord Crawford and his son Balcarres, Algy Grosvenor, God-
frey Webb, Needham, and me. The Comtesse de Paris shoots well. I
walked the last two miles across the moor with her and saw her kill a
brace of strong flying driven grouse in excellent style. She marches
over the heather like a grenadier, shouts at the beaters, and jokes in
rough country fashion with those near her. The Comte is equally
without pretence. They are addressed as Monseigneur and Madame
— sometimes, but rarely, as Altesse — their conversation a long se-
quence of royal commonplace. They are full of bonhomie. Coming
to the high road on our way home a gipsy woman stopped the Count,
and he gave her two sixpences.
"20/A Sept. — At I, came the Comte and Comtesse de Paris, and
the little Princess looking lovely in a hat with pink flowers. I was put
next her at luncheon, and we talked all the time, Balcarres being on
her right hand. We talked about the East, and she promised to come
to Egypt and that I should be her dragoman and take her to Mount
Sinai. She told me about her life at home at Stowe, where she rides
and hunts with the Duke of Grafton's hounds, and at Loch Kinnaird
where she walks about the hills alone each summer with her dogs. I
asked her, * Have you no governess with you ? ' 'I should like to see
the governess,* she said, ' who would undertake to look after me.* And
she looked proudly out of her blue eyes. In Spain, where they spend
part of their winters near Seville, they hunt wild camels on horse-
back. We talked, too, about her brother, the Due d'Orleans' imprison-
ment at Paris, and mine in Ireland."
On my way back south I paid a first visit to the Glen, where most
of the Tennant family wer^ assembled, though Margot was away.
Lucy and Charty, however, were there, and I made great friends with
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old Lady Tennant, a quiet little old lady, very well dressed, active and
alert, whom I found exceedingly pleasant and conversable, with a
heart overflowing with kindness. She showed me a book about Souls,
which gives diagrams of the various kinds of souls, the surface soul, the
deep soul, and the mixed soul, half-clever, half-childish (the book had
something to do, I think, with the name given to the set of which her
daughters were such notable members).
"Talking about Gladstone, she tells me that Gladstone's grand-
father lived in this neighbourhood at Peebles. He was a baker, spelling
his name Gladstanes, but known locally as ' licht bap,' on account of his
selling his bread at false weight, ' bap ' being the name of a kind of
loa/. After luncheon we all drove to Traquhair, an interesting old
house much fallen into decay, the present owner taking no interest in
it. We were shown over the rooms by his brother, who might have
been one of Scott's Osbaldistones. The family pedigrees were lying
littered round the library, hardly legible for damp.
" 30th Sept, — To Kelmscott Manor, to wish the Morrises good-b3re
for the winter. It was very perfect weather and we did our gudgeon
fishing and took our walks as usual there. Jenny is better than she
has been for several years. Her devotion to her father is most touch-
ing and his to her. Morris in high feather. He read us out several
of his poems of his best, including ' The Haystack in the Floods,' but
his reading is without the graces of elocution. He did it as if he were
throwing a bone to a dog, at the end of each piece breaking off with
' There, that's it,' ad much as to say, * You may take it or leave it, as
you please.' He is to lecture on art at Birmingham on FridSiy. Politi-
cally he is in much the same position as I ^am. He has found his
Socialism impossible and uncongenial, and has thrown it wholly up
for art and poetry, his earlier loves. I fancy I may have influenced
him in this."
The early autumn saw me once more in Paris, where the unrest of
the military party which had given Boulanger his chance two years
before, a chance which he had failed to take, had given place to apathy.
" Poor Boulanger," I write, ist October, "•has blown his brains out
over the grave of Madame Bonnemain. Politically he was -already
defunct, and this is a graceful and dramatic exit " ; and a week later,
" PameU is dead."
Here I spent my time, as usual, mostly at the Embassy, where Lady
Salisbury was sta)ring with her daughter. Lady Gwendolen, and her
sister-in-law. Lady Galloway, both very charming women. Lady Salis-
bury, too, was clever with much dry wit. I find the following in my
journal : " I sat between Lady Salisbury and Lady Galloway to-night
at dinner, and during it she told us a story of a visit she had paid long
ago to old Lady Palmerston, and how Lady Palmerston had said to
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58 George Cureon and Oscar WUde [1891
her, d propos of the bondage of social observances : ' My dear you will
some day be in my position (of Prime Minister's wife), and when you
are I advise you to pay no visits at all/ * So I never pay any,' she said,
'except to the Foreign Ambassadresses. Of course,' she added, *I
don't include those of the South American Republics or any others of
the people who live up trees.' "
The question of the evacuation of Egypt was being a good deal dis-
cussed at that time in Paris, as the French Government, suspecting Lord
Salisbury of the intention, he in fact had, of making the Occupation
there more permanent, was beginning to give trouble, and I found both
Lytton and Egerton, first Secretary of the Embassy, an old friend of
mine, who did much of the work of the Embassy, and had been acting
as Charge d' Affaires during Lytton's absence on leave during the sum-
mer, anxious to hear what I had to say on the subject, and I discussed
it thoroughly with both. I had learned from my Egyptian friend,
Sanua, who had just been at Constantinople and had had an interview
with Sultan Abdul Hamid, that the Sultail had declared positively to
him that he would take action to enforce the evacuation. There was
a perfect understanding now between the Turkish Government and the
French, probably also the Russian Government, who had repented the
pressure they had put upon Abdul Hamid to prevent his ratifying the
Wolff Convention, and were pressing the Sultan to re-open the ques-
tion. L)rtton, poor .fellow, had returned to Paris from a cure he had
been taking in England, very seriously ill, and the doctors had enjoined
upon him complete idleness, a remedy which would involve his giving
up his Embassy, but he was interested in what I told him, and asked
me to write him a memorandum on the whole subject of Egypt, and
especially that I should discuss it with Egerton. This I did and found
Egerton strongly in favour of my views. "To my surprise he told
me that he was in favour of evacuating Egypt seeing the pledges that
had been given. * We have managed,' he said, * to set everybody there
against us except that stupid fool the Khedive who counts for nothing,'
and urged me strongly not only to write but to publish my memorandum,
if only anonjrmously in the 'Times.'" Later (the same day, 27th
October) I saw George Curzon who is staying in Paris with Condy
Stephens. He, Curzon, of course, talks all the other way, and says
the whole Conservative party will oppose evacuation tooth «nd nail.
I breakfasted with him, Oscar Wilde, and Willy Peel, on which oc-
casion Oscar told us he was writing a play in French to be acted in
the Frangais. He is ambitious of being a French Academician. We
promised to go to the first representation, George Curzon as Prime
Minister. A day or two later, with Lytton's approval and Egerton's,
I gave my memorandum to Blowitz (the " Times " correspondent), and
it appeared in due course in the " Times " without my name, and ac-
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iSgi] Lord Lytton's Death at Paris 59
companied with a leading article. Lord Salisbury, however, had al-
ready made up his mind, and in a new speech reiterated his intention
to remain in Egypt. " Lytton,'^ I write, nth November, " is delighted
with Lord Salisbury's boldness in refusing to evacuate. Egerton says
it is foolhardy."*
It is worth noting that, if Egerton's view had prevailed, and our
quarrel with France had then been solved on the basis of our evacuat-
ing Egypt, it would in all probability have forestalled the mistake made
twelve years later of effecting the reconciliation, through the fatal error
of basing it on " compensating " France by encouraging her seizure of
Morocco. The Entente with France, begun in 1904 by an act of ag-
gression on a harmless neighbour, involved France necessarily in a
quarrel with Germany, who had earmarked Morocco as her share of
the plunder of North Africa; it revived at Paris the half-forgotten
dream of a guerre de revanche for Alsace-Lorraine, and strengthened
the war party on both sides the Rhine. England it involved in the
Entente with Russia, cemented with the betrayal of a second weak
Mohammedan state, Persia, and drove progressive Turkey, in fear of
a third betrayal, into an alliance with Kaiser Wilhelm.
I left Paris a few days later for Rome and Cairo. During the fort-
night that I had been at the Embassy, Lytton's condition had rapidly
grown worse, and when, on the 13th of November, I was taken in to
where he lay in bed to say good-bye, I felt that our farewell might be
the last. " Give my love to Dufferin," were his last words, " when
you are at Rome — that he always has — and tell him I am a wreck,
but do not mean to make a vacancy yet." And so we said, God bless
you and good-bye. It was less than a fortnight later (25th November,
at Fogliano) that a telegram reached me, forwarded through Lord
Dufferin at Rome, from Paris, telling me that my friend had died.
His death was a loss I can hardly estimate, and to many more than
me, for by the public in Paris it was looked on as a State calamity.
He had managed to make himself beloved there as no English ambas-
sador had been since Waterloo, and as Dufferin, who, as had been ex-
pected, succeeded him, with all his great social gifts was never able to
achieve. It was not merely that Lytton was popular, but he was
beloved. His death was a loss to the cause of our good understanding
with France, and I think to Egjrpt too, for though too pronounced an
Imperialist to wish to see England's hand over the Nile relaxed, no
one could so well have settled the conditions of an evacuation as Lytton
could have done had it been so decided. And he placed value on my
opinion in the matter.
During the few days I spent at Rome that November I attended a
^ For my memorandum, see Appendix II.
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6o Sir William Harcaurt [1891
Peace Congress, to which as member of the acting committee of the
Arbitration and Peace Society I had been invited, but I was very un-
favourably impressed with the Italian tone in regard to international
matters where the rights of non-European nationalities were at stake.
The Italians, like the French and all the Latin races, seemed to me
incapable of grasping the idea, which we in England at any rate admit
in theory if seldom in practice, that the nations outside the community
of Christian civilization have any rights at all. I did not speak on this
occasion, but I left the meeting convinced that the establishment of
international peace if it could be secured for Europe would bode no
good for Africa or Asia, and that as far as these regions of the world
were concerned the old proverb probably held good, " When thieves fall
out honest men come by their own."
From Fogliano we went straight on without returning to Rome, and
so by the first boat to Alexandria, reaching Sheykh Obeyd on 7th De-
cember, where we spent the rest of the winter.
About the close of the year 1891, 1 received the following letter from
Sir William Harcourt in answer to one of mine from Paris, inclosing
a copy of my Paris memorandum. As it is of great importance I give
it textually here:
** Malwood, i6th December 1891.
" Dear Wilfrid Blunt,
" I have not written before to thank you for your paper on Egypt,
as you sent me at the time no address. I was greatly impressed by the
ability and moderation of its views, and the fulness with which the
question was discussed in every aspect. I forwarded it to John Morley,
who entirely concurred with me, in the high opinion I had formed of
its merits.
" The question is, no doubt, one of great complexity and cannot be
rushed. At the same time I have never varied in my opinion of the
mischief and danger of the continued occupation, as far as England is
concerned, and though probably you will not agree with me I regard
this as by far the most important consideration. It is quite impossible
for the Government to take a high line as to occupation after the Drum-
mond-Wolff negotiations. The whole thing is summed up in a nutshell
by Wolff in his concluding despatch, after the ratification by the Eng-
lish Government of the Convention for the Evacuation in 1887, within
the space of three years. He says, * It has more than once been sug-
gested that England should take permanent possession of Egypt. This
would have been violation of the traditional policy of England, of her
good faith to the Sultan, and of public law. In time of peace it would
have exposed her to constant jealousy and danger. In time of war, it
would have been a weak point, entailing a constant drain on her re*
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1891] On the Evacuation of Egypt 61
sources. Her Majesty's Government have disclaimed all idea of an*
nexing Egypt or of establishing a Protectorate over it.'
"This language was approved by Salisbury, and was a deliberate
renewal in the face of Europe of the pledges given in 1881. Salisbury
undertook to * guarantee the neutralization of Egypt as the mandatory
of the other Powers, that duty being regarded as a burden rather than
a privilege.* The great mischief, as you properly point out, is that
since that period the policy of Evelyn Baring has been to administer
the Government of Egypt in such a manner as to make it constantly
less instead of more able to stand by itself, and so to make the task of
fulfilling our obligation more rather than less difficult.
" I hope by this time you are enjoying your wild life in the desert.
We are raising our rural tribes here, who are rallying round the Mahdi
Schnadhorst — but I forgot you have sworn off British Politics, a wise
determination to which I advise you to adhere.
" Yrs. sincerely,
'•W. V. Harcourt.*'
This is a very important letter, as it indicates doubtless what Mr.
Gladstone's view at the time was, for Sir William Harcourt and he
worked together on questions of foreign policy. It is also of im-
portance as showing that John Morley then shared their opinion. It
was a combination of Baring, and of Milner, acting under his direction
on the London Press, with Rosebery, that prevented an honest solution
of the Egyptian question when the Liberals, shortly afterwards, re-
turned to powen
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CHAPTER IV
THE YOUNG KHEDIVE ABBAS
1892 to 1893
The year 1892 opened with an event which was to prove a turning-
point in Eg3^tian history, one where a new opportunity was given to
our Government of making a fresh §tart in the direction of that Na-
tional Government on constitutional lines, which Lord Dufferin had
promised and which might have enabled England to withdraw her army
of occupation in agreement with the Sultan, and the Powers of Europe,
but which was once more unfortunately let slip, mainly through Sir
Evelyn Baring's fault, who misjudged the character of those with
whom he had to deal, and found in it only an opportunity of taking the
reins of Government at Cairo more completely into his own hands.
On the 7th of January of the new year the Khedive Tewfik, still com-
paratively a young man, suddenly and unexpectedly died. He had
been ailing for a few days at his country palace at Helwan, and no one
had at all foreseen what was to happen. In the common view of native
Egypt he was supposed to have been poisoned, the memory of such
doings for political reasons being still strong in the popular mind,
though, in fact, it was a natural death hastened only by the mistake
of the doctors called in to attend him.
" gth Jan, 1892. — Yesterday at eleven o'clock Mutlak (our Bedouin
horse rider), came to me and told me that the Khedive was dead, and
immediately afterwards Mohammed Nassr the Berberi porter repeated
the news, * It is Husseyn Pasha the Prince,' the latter said, ' who has
done it, I was in his service, and he is a son of sin, ibn el haram* On
the roof, old Ali, the plasterer, who is a Halimist, and had just been to
the station at Matarieh for gossip, remarked with a wink to me, ' Are
you not going to the funeral ? ' and he went through the pantomime of
drinking a cup of coffee (meaning he had been poisoned). This morn-
ing he tells me about it more precisely. ' It is the Dowlah that did it
(the Sultan's Government). Mukhtar had advised Tewfik many times
to try a change of air, for the air of Egypt did not agree with him,
but he would not listen.' I asked the old man whether he meant that
Mukhtar had had it done. * Oh, no,' he said, * they have sent some-
body on purpose from beyond the water' (from Stamboul). It cer-
6a
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tainly looks suspicious. They hurried on the funeral with extravagant
haste. Tewfik died at 8 p.m. on Thursday, and was buried the next
afternoon, Friday. The palace physician gave his certificate that the
death was a natural one ; no European doctor examined the body. It
takes us back to the good old times.
" For the interests of the Egyptians I cannot pretend to be sorry.
I was talking on Monday to Mohammed Moelhi, and we agreed that
it was hopeless to look for any improvement as long as Tewfik was on
the throne ; he would never consent to a reconstruction of the National
Party or work with the Constitution ; latterly he had gone over very
much to the French. Of the prince hiritier Abbas, Mohammed said
he was very anti-English, though too young to have fixed opinions.
A Constitution might be possible with him if strongly supported for a
few years by England. Lord Salibury will have his hand forced, to
make a settlement of the Eg3rptian question, and I am glad of it, as the
English Liberals cannot be trusted to protect native interests here, and
would probably hand over the Protectorate in all but name to the
French. I have not seen any European yet, so do not know how Baring
takes the event."
" 10th Jan. — Went in to Cairo to see Baring, and had a few min-
utes' conversation with him. I suggested that on the accession of the
new Khedive there might be a general pardon and amnesty. He said,
' Perhaps, but not for those in Ceylon.' * Why not ? ' I asked. * I
understood from you that it was Tewfik's personal unwillingness that
stood in the way.' He answered, ' Anyhow, it cannot be done. They
(the exiles) have got nothing the matter with them, and they only
want to go to C)rprus.' Again I asked, * Why not to Cyprus ? ' But
he would not hear of it. We talked about the Khedive's death, and
he told me he had had an inflammation of the kidneys, and passed no
water for forty-eight hours; he blamed the doctors. *The Khedive,'
he added, ' always had a very bad entourage.'
"Lunched with the Tennants. They had been to tea with us on
the last day of the old year, and Margot had been very charming and
very amusing.
** Then to Helwan to see Minshawi Pasha, and hear his version of
the news. ' Ah,' said Minshawi (he was living in a villa close by the
Khedivial palace), 'if you had only come to see me a week sooner,
we should have had the pleasure of making Tewfik angry.'
"20th Jan, — Dr. Abdel Razak Bey came to see me. He had been
with Salim Pasha a day or two ago, who was one of the late Khedive's
two doctors. Salim had told him that what the Khedive died of was
in reality a stricture. Abdel Razak speaks highly of the young Abbas
as well instructed and intelligent, and we discussed the new situation
Tewfik's death must cause for the Egyptian National Party."
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64 The Young Khedive Abbas Helmi [1892
Abdel Razak had been one of Arabi's personal friends, and one of
his most level-headed advisers, knowing Europe well, and speaking
English as well as French, a rare accomplishment at that time. By
his advice and that of Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, who formed a favour-
able opinion of the young Khedive Abbas, who now succeeded his
father, I decided that the time was now come for me to make my
peace formally with the Egyptian Government. As long as Tewfik
was alive it had been difficult for me to do this. I had taken too
prominent a part in the revolution, and had denounced Tewfik too
openly after it to make it possible for me to take any step towards
a reconciliation or pay my respects to him by calling at the palace. But
it was now thought by my friends that I should do well in asking an
audience of his successor, and I consequently asked Baring to present
me formally to Abbas, as was the custom in the case of other English-
men visiting Egypt. In pursuance of this resolve I find in my diary :
" i^ Feb. — Went into Cairo with Anne and lunched with the Bar-
ings, and was taken by Baring afterwards to call upon the Khedive
Abbas at the Abdin Palace. It is rather more than eleven years since
I had paid just such another visit to Tewfik with Malet. When we
were shown in to-day we were met at the door of the room by a little
young man in military undress whom I took to be an Aide-de-Camp,
but who turned out to be Abbas himself, a quite unmilitary figure of
proportions which made him look like a woman dressed up in man's
clothes. He has, however, a very good manner in talking, and a pleas-
ant smile, with brown eyes, and just a tinge of russet in his hair. He
reminded me much of his grandfather, Ismail, and has just the same
sort of French accent, talking French well but not perfectly. He
showed no sign of shyness, and treated Baring with easy politeness,
without any sign of special deference ; me he treated with considerable
amiability. We talked a little about the brigandage in the neighbour-
hood of his Koubbah Palace and Sheykh Obeyd (the two places are
within three miles of each other), and then about petitions, and then
about certain receptions and ceremonies, nothing at all interesting, but
I thought he showed considerable intelligence, and there was a slight
touch of sarcasm in his talk reminding me very especially of Ismail.
I shall be surprised if he does 'not give Baring trouble. He is said
about here to be very anti-English, but Baring will not hear a word of
this, though I expect it is true." So far my journal. My recollection,
however, goes further than this. It is that Baring's manner on this
occasion was very abrupt, like that of a schoolmaster to a schoolboy,
and that on our way back from the palace I remarked to him that I
thought the Khedive would not bear driving with any but a very light
rein, his answer Deing that it was necessary to treat Orientals firmly;
also I warned him he would have trouble.
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1S92J Gladstone Returns to Office 6$
''I have written to Sir William Harcourt to tell him of Tewfik's
death and my impressions of Abbas, and to urge him to push forward
Constitutional Government in Egypt."
We left Egypt soon after this and were back in England by the
middle of April.
The stunmer that followed, like the last, I devoted more to literature
and society than to politics. My daughter Judith was now being
brought out in society, and though I did not attend many of her balls
and parties, it was a distraction for me from serious work. There is
very little of my diary connected with politics until the middle of
August, when the general elections took place, which resulted in a
moderate triumph for the Liberal party, and Lord Salisbury's retire-
ment from office in favour once more of Gladstone. In the meanwhile
there are a few entries in my journal worth transcribing:
'*gth May. — Called on Lady Gregory, and found her sad in her
widow's weeds. Sir William died during the winter.
" I have finished ' Griselda,' and the Arabic ballads, and ' The Steal-
ing of the Mare,' and am publishing an article on Lytton as a Poet in
the ' Nineteenth Century.'
" iSth May. — Riding in the park I was joined by Frederic Harrison,
who told me he had been converted to Islam as a living religion, and
offered to support my candidature if I would come forward as a
Mohammedan at the elections.
" igth May. — To lunch with Sir William Harcourt. The old man
was very communicative both about Egypt and about Ireland. As to
the former he is for evacuation, but is sound about not giving the
country up to France. He asked me about the Soudan danger, about
which I reassured him ; then as to whether it would not be possible to
occupy the Suez Canal only. I said I thought it would be quite pos-
sible. He would not hear of allowing the Sultan to intervene. I told
him that it would be easy to constitute a Liberal native Government
and retire. He seemed surprised to hear that the land tax had not
been reduced. * As to justice,' he said, ' justice is only a question of
personalities in any country.' Next we discussed Ireland. He said,
' I am afraid there is no doubt we shall be in office after the elections,
and then our troubles will begin. The Irish are impossible; they are
split up into four sections, and there is no leader among them to treat
with.' We went through the various prominent men in the Irish party,
and he asked me about Dr. Walsh and Dr. Crook, also about Persico's
mission, and the politics of the Vatican. I gather from him that the
Home Rule Bill will be no simple matter, and that he is not personally
much interested in it. He spoke severely of the individual Irish lead-
ers.
'^20th May. — To the Frederic Harrisons. We had a long talk
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66 Frederic Harrison on Comte [1892
about Egypt, and agreed that the best chance of getting an honest policy
of evacuation would be to prevent Rosebery's returning to the Foreign
Office. Harrison thinks that Rosebery will either not join Gladstone's
Ministry, or make it a condition that the status quo in Egypt should
be continued. On Ireland he is quite pessimistic, considers Home Rule
for the present a lost cause, and the G.O.M. destined to retire from
public life discredited. Morley would follow him, and there would
then be a reconstruction of the Liberal party under Rosebery, Chamber-
lain, Harcourt, and Randolph. He thinks, nevertheless, that Ireland
would some day or other get its independence, while I maintained
that the tendency of progress was towards the amalgamation of
nations, not their separation. To this he said, 'You know we, the
Positivists, believe that in the next century there will be one hundred
and fifty separate States in Europe,' but Mrs. Harrison dissented,
and I should fancy that his faith in the Comtist prediction is not very
solid.
"23rd May, — I am staying at Babraham with the Adeanes, and
went to-day, with Adeane, to Gogmagog to see the pictures of the God-
olphin, and other Arabians, and the former's grave. The original por-
trait of the Godolphin, which is there, is of a second-rate Arab, with a
heavy head, lop ears, and a drooping quarter. It is difficult to under-
stand that race-horses should have sprung from his loins. The view
from Gogmagog over the plain is grand, but the house is mean, though
beloved of its ducal owner. In the afternoon to Audley End, a stately
place, but unfortunately cleaned up, plate glassed, and adorned in recent
years.
"24/A May, — Dined with Philip Currie in Connaught Place, Mrs.
Singleton doing the honours. I sat between Mrs. Algy Grosvenor and
Oscar Wilde. Beyond Oscar Mrs. Singleton, then Godfrey Webb.
There were also Lady Ducane and a daughter. Lady Sykes, Lady Bar-
ing, just made a peeress, O'Connor^ and Trench, diplomats, and three
or four more. Oscar was in good form, and he and I, Philip and
O'Connor sat up till half-past twelve talking when the rest were
gone.
" 25 f A May, — To a meeting at Lord Cowper's, respecting a memorial
for Lytton. Lord Salisbury was present, and made an inappropriate
proposal (as I thought) that the monument should be placed in the
India Office. Alfred Austin opposed this on literary gp-ounds, and I
seconded him, asking that the Committee should first try for a place,
however small, in the Abbey. I am quite sure this would have been
Lytton's own wish, for he cared far more for his position as a poet
than for all the rest.
"4/A June. — Took Judith to lunch at Hammersmith. Morris in
^ Afterwards Ambassador at Constantinople.
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1892] Baron de Steal 67
good talk, told us he had never in all his life been owner of a dog, and
did not care for pets — thought he might perhaps make friends with
a horse, if he had the time and opportunity. He showed us round
the printing press, where his Golden Legend sheets were hanging on
strings to dry, the printers being away for their Whit Saturday after-
noon.
" 5th June, — Whit Sunday at Crabbet. Staal the Russian Ambas-
sador came to lunch with his wife and datighfer. He is of all
foreigners the man with whom I can talk most intimately, for we were
fast friends thirty-three years ago at Athens, he then thirty-seven, I
eighteen. Now he is seventy, I fifty-one; yet we talked just as of
old, and I doubt if we feel much older. He was never a young man,
even in those days.
" yth June. — To Mark Napier's at Fulham. Mark was in his shirt-
sleeves, working at the building of a steam launch he is constructing
with his own hands in the upstairs drawing-room of Little Mulgrave
House, a beautiful room of the last century, full of china and bric-A-
brae, perhaps the most incongruous building yard ever chosen. The
diflSculty will be to get the boat out of the window when finished. A
large circular saw stood in the dining-room downstairs. [The boat
was safely launched, nevertheless.]
" 20th June, — Breakfast with George W)mdham and Sibell. George
and I discussed the prospects of the General Election. He says the
most optimistic Tory calculation is 14 majority, while Loulou Har-
court and the Liberals count on 100 for their majority.
" $th July, — At Kelmscott Manor. I came here yesterday. Morris
in fine spirits, and inexhaustible energy over his new hobby, the print-
ing press. He is beginning a Chaucer, and there is great discussion
whether it is to be printed in single or double column. I am much in
favour of the single column. Burne Jones is to do illustrations. I
forgot to say that I was at Merton last week with the Morrises, when
we saw a brother of his, working in the dye vats there, a dreamy man
in workman's clothes, with his shirt sleeves turned up, and his arms
blue with indigo to the elbows. I asked Morris about him and, he
tells me that having begun life with a good fortune — he had a country
place in Herefordshire — he has gradually fallen in the world, and
after tr3dng one thing and another to get a living is now glad to be
employed on weekly wages. He lives at Merton, and is quite happy,
indeed he looked so, dipping wool all day in the vats, in a shed open on
to the garden. It is, perhaps, the nearest thing to a conventual life
which can be found in the lay world. We walked to-day in the mead-
ows by the river.
" 6th July, — The elections are going not too well for Gladstone, and
though he will probably get a majority, I fear Home Rule is doomed.
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68 Gladstone Re-elected [1892
Ireland will never have a chance again. On all other grounds I am
glad, and so is Morris, but politics are a weary thing. I read him part
of ' The Stealing of the Mare,' which he approves, and advises me to
publish, though he says nobody will read it ; and he read us some of his
own Scandinavian translations in return.
" 13/A July, — Mark Napier has got into Parliament, I am glad to
see. Gladstone's majority will now be 50 or more. Lord Salisbury,
George tells me, will meet Parliament, and will not retire till a vote of
want of confidence has been passed. Gladstone's personal majority in
Midlothian only 650.
" igth July. — Gladstone has now a majority of 46 in the new House
of Commons. I have not voted at all in this election, or taken any
part.
" 23rd and 24th July.— Meeting of the Crabbet Club, those present
were:
George Wyndham. Charles Laprimaudaye.
George Curzon. Harry Cust.
Nigel Kingscote. Hubert Howard.
Charles Gatty. George Leveson Gower.
Theobald Mathew. Dick Grosvenor.
Godfrey Webb. Mark Napier.
Loulou Harcourt.
George Wyndham performed a wonderful feat, writing a long poem
in a most compHcated metre, and full of excellent things in hardly
more than an hour, between sets of lawn tennis. Cust wrote another
under like conditions, so full of wit that we nearly gave him the prize.
George Leveson was also good. The tennis handicap was won by
Hubert Howard, the laureateship by Mathew. Hubert won the cup
through Grosvenor's magnanimity, who having the last set in hand
suddenly found himself lame and retired. Cust is interesting, and of
great abilities. George Leveson a delightful butt, and cause of wit in
others with untouchable good humour. These occasions are the salt
of life.
''26th July. — To Hamilton Aide's at Ascot to meet Lady Brooke,
the Ranee of Borneo. She is, or rather has been, a fine, fair woman,
and is now perhaps thirty-seven, living in England away from her
husband. Aide tells me, because he prefers other wives. I have had a
good deal of conversation with her about native races and European
civilization. I have sent in my proofs of * Esther,' finally corrected,
with five of the sonnet-stanzas cut out. George Wyndham thinks the
poem will not greatly suffer, though he regrets it.
" 1st Aug. — Dined at the Gerald Balfours, Betty charming, and a
very gay evening, the other guests being Lady Frances Balfour, clever,
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but with much of her father's assertive manner, Eustace Balfour,
Alfred Lyall, and Margot Tennant, the conversation all the evening
very brilliant, but it is useless trying to reproduce it. I sat on a sofa
with Margot, she with a fan made of an eagle's wing. I have sent a
letter to Sir William Harcourt about Egypt, the moment seeming to
have arrived."
There are many other interesting entries of about this date, but
they are none of them quite germane to the subject of this volume,
unless it is the following, which illustrates the growth among ourselves
in England of those doctrines of supermanity and imperial selfishness
which we have since ascribed to a German origin, and denounce among
the prime causes of our war with Germany in 1914. It was at the
time a surprise to me as an avowal by a man of personal amiability of
ruthless principles which I found later to be common enough among
my ultra imperialist friends.
" 5th Aug. — To Cromer with Anne and Judith, Betty Balfour also
travelling with us with her children. We arc staying with Frederick
Locker in his wife's villa. Gerald Balfour joined us in the evening.
" 6th Aug, — Sat in the garden with Betty looking over her father's
papers (some of which she has a design to print) and talking about
him. Gerald is a very pretty tennis player, and has been at hard
exercise all day at it and golf. I like him better now that I know him
better.
" 7th Aug. (Sunday) — Drove with the Balfours and Conny L3rtton
to Blickling, where we lunched. On the way we had a grand discussion
about patriotism, Gerald maintaining that patriotism was the imperial
instinct in Englishmen, who should support their country's quarrels
even when in the wrong. This of course is not my view. Gerald has
all his brother's scientific inhumanity in politics, and it is a school of
thought distinctly on the increase, for it flatters the selfish instincts of
the strong by proving to them that their selfishness is right. Blickling
is a perfect place with a very lovely garden. Lady Lothian doing the
honours of it, and showing us all round. There is a small herd still of
the wild white cattle, ten cows and a bull, with some calves. They
were brought originally, Lady Lothian told us, from a park near Man-
chester, which became engulfed in the town smoke, a herd then of forty
cows (the cowkeeper said twenty), but they were almost all destroyed
at the time of the cattle plague, some years since, three cows being at
one time all the stock left. Then they got a bull from a herd that had
been drafted, and so gradually have restored the breed. Its charac-
teristics are well marked, white with black muzzles, and the ears inside
black; the bull was very fine. The herd is tame enough now, being
driven in every afternoon to be milked, and the calves are brought up
by hand in sheds.
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yo Darwin's Law Misunderstood [1892
" Constance, Lady Lothian, I knew as a very pretty woman thirty
years ago, with her invalid husband (elder brother of my friend
Schomberg Kerr), of whom a fine portrait exists by Watts. On our
way home we renewed our argument as applied especially to the Irish.
* They ought to have been exterminated long ago,' said Gerald, ' but it
is too late now.' He is confident, however, of defeating Home Rule
by Constitutional means."
Gerald's argument, I recollect, was based on an application to inter-
racial politics of Darwin's Jaw of the selection of the fittest, or rather
of what is an exaggerated interpretation of that law. Those who put
forward this view forget that Man by the abnormal development of his
reasoning powers and his invention of lethal weapons, has put himself
outside the unconscious working of the natural law. Darwin is in no
way responsible for this application of his doctrine, as is clearly seen
in the sympathy he shows with the backward races of mankind, es-
pecially in his "Voyage of the Beagle." Though individual strives
with individual in the natural world, there is never a combination of a
whole species or 4-ace to make war with and destroy a feebler race.
This was my argument with Gerald. Three years later he was ap-
pointed by Lord Salisbury and his brother Arthur, Chief Secretary for
Ireland, and proved a kindly ruler while in office there, being by nature
an altogether amiable, kind-hearted man, but infected, as so many of
our Imperialists were beginning to be at that date, by the politico-
scientific doctrines so crudely preached in Germany.
On the 7th of August I started on a driving tour, the first of many
such I made in after years, taking the northern road as far as Streatley,
then crossing the Berkshire Downs westward, and travelling over grass
a quite uninhabited country, " as desolate as parts of Mesopotamia, and
in the bright sunlight very beautiful, coveys of young partridges run-
ning here and there tamely in front of the carriage, and so as far as
Chilton, where I had the good fortune to find entertainmenf at the
rectory house of the parson, Morland, a worthy man, living ulone in that
lonely place and glad to see a stranger, a hospitality rare of its kind in
civilized England, and so on to Kelmscott, where I stayed a couple of
nights. I found there my friend John Henry Middleton, the Cambridge
Professor, an old ally of Morris's, and intimate in former days with
Rossetti. Middleton had been a considerable traveller in out-of-the-
way places, and he narrated to me in detail what I had already heard
him tell, his experience in Morocco with a Moorish magician. This is
his account of the incident:
" He was travelling in 1879 about half way between Tetuan and
Morocco, and one evening an old man came to his camp mounted on an
ass, with a boy as servant. The man said he was a magician, and
proposed to perform three wonders ; the first to throw a ball of twine
Digitized by
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1892] A Moorish Magician 71
into the air, the second to make a plant grow, and the third to show
the face of a person thought of, in a globe of ink. It was already late,
and the performance was put off until the following morning — the
magician remaining the night in the camp, and in the morning when
the tents were struck he was invited to give his performance. It was
an open place, uninhabited, and without trees or bushes. Middleton
chose the ground at some little distance from where the camp had
been. The magician first took from his wallet a large ball of string,
large enough to need both hands to lift it, and having made a long
incantation he tied the end of the string to one finger of his left hand,
and then with a great exertion threw the ball upwards, which unravelled
as it went, and, growing less and less, disappeared in the air. He then
let go of the string's end, which continued to hang from the sky. The
magician and his boy sat at a little distance, and Middleton went to
the string and pulled it downwards, as you would pull a bell-rope. It
stretched to within about two feet of the ground, but he felt the re-
sistance strongly from above, so much so that he cut his fingers with
the string, the mark remaining for several days afterwards. The five
men whom he had with him also touched the string, three of these were
Moors, one a Berber, and the other an interpreter. It was clear day-
light at the time, about half an hour after sunrise. When they had all
satisfied themselves that the string was suspended as it appeared to
be, the magician came forward, and in his turn pulled it, when it fell
down from the sky in coils on the ground ; he then rolled it up again
into a ball, and put it back into his wallet.
" The magician next took from his wallet a seed, and when Middle-
ton had chosen a bare place, planted it in the ground ; he then asked
for some palm branches which they had with them, and which had been
cut the day before, and he made an arched covering with them over the
seed and heaped horse rugs upon the hoops, and then sat apart and made
incantations. At the end of a few minutes he invited them to undo
the covering, and there, in the ground, a plant was growing, set firmly
in the earth, the first time a few inches high, but when he had covered
it up again and built the hoops higher, it at last became three feet eight
inches high. Middleton measured the plant, found it firmly rooted, and
cut off and kept some of the leaves; the nature of the plant seemed
to resemble that of the Indian rubber tree, and it had some fifty leaves.
It was fresh and healthy though the weather was very hot, it being the
month of October. In the third incantation Middleton was made to
look into a globe of ink. He desired to see the face of a friend, but
instead saw persistently and very vividly a certain landscape he knew
weD on the river Severn, near Tewkesbury. The magician when asked
whether he could climb the string and disappear in the air (like the
Qiagician Marco Polo tells of), stated that his grandfather had had the
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72 Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1892
power, but that he himself was unable. Having been rewarded, he
mounted his ass and rode away. Middleton believes that the manifesta-
tions produced were mesmeric, certainly no trick. The leaves of the
plant he kept for some time, but lost with other things in a shipwreck
on his way home."
Middleton had known Kelmscott Manor in the early days when
Rossetti and Morris first took the house together at a rent of i6o a
year. The Tapestry Room, which is now the sitting-room, used to
be Rossetti's own room, and it was there that he wrote his poetry.
Rossetti, he tells me, was addicted to loves of the most material kind
both before and after his marriage, with women, generally models,
without other soul than their beauty. It was remorse at the contrast
between his ideal and his real loves that preyed on him and destroyed
his mind. It is touching to see still on the table at meals napkins
marked with the initials D. G. R. His ghost seems to me to be present
in all the rooms. From thence I drove on to Stanway, where I found
Arthur Balfour, to whom I narrated Middleton's experience in Mo-
rocco, which interested him greatly. We had a pleasant time there,
and I found Balfour most agreeable, glad to be relieved of office, Salis-
bury having just resigned.
" i6th Aug, — It is announced that Rosebery has taken office after
all as Foreign Secretary under Gladstone. This will neutralise any
good that might have come of a change of Government to Egypt.
Rosebery will continue to represent the Bondholders. Gladstone has
made up his Ministry, every one of them Whigs. Asquith and Lefevre
are the only two who are at all advanced, the rest quite of the old gang,
only one surprise. Houghton is to go as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland,
a triumph for the Crabbet Qub !
" From Stanway on to Batsf ord, which is now Bertie Mitf ord's. He
inherited it about five years ago from his cousin Lord Redeadale, and
has spent a vast amount of money pulling the old house down and
building a new Victorian Tudor one. He has also laid out the grounds
with elaborate rockeries and a multitude of trees and foreign shrubs,
stabling on a vast scale, a stud of shire cart mares, the most interesting
feature of the place. I remember Bertie as a very good-looking youth,
three or four years older than myself, with a great reputation for
ability, much talent for languages, and a player of the comet d piston —
this was in 1858. We went up for an examination the same day, he
for a clerkship in the Foreign Office, I for the diplomatic service."
Thence (iSth Aug.) on to The Glen, where I found John Addington
Symonds staying in the house, and where I stayed ten days with Margot
and a number of young ladies, a very delightful time, of which my
diary is full, but again this is not the place for it.
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From Qen I went to Saighton, where one incident occurs which
deserves transcribing:
" 2nd Sept, — After luncheon we drove, George, Sibell and I, three in
a row, in a dog-cart to Hawarden, George having been especially in-^
vited there. We were to meet the G.O.M. at the new library he has
constructed in the village, a terrible building of corrugated iron over-
looking the Sands of Dee. Inside it is conveniently arranged, and
must be an advantage to the inhabitants. We were met there by Mrs.
Drew, who told us her father would come presently, and leaving
George and me took Sibell off with her to the castle. While waiting in
the library I was glad to firtd little Maud Gladstone whom I had known
as Maud Rendel, and with her we wWled away the quarter of an hour
we had to wait. The G.O.M., when he arrived, was very cordial with
George, but not as I think with me. He talked about his books in the
absorbed way he has, going on, without paying the least attention to
the person he is speaking to, especially if it is his wife and she ventures
to interpose a remark. The ladies invited me to go back with them,
and I walked with Maud, leaving George and Mr. G. to follow. She
showed me over the house when we arrived, Mr. G.'s * Temple of
Peace,' and the rest which I knew from Margot's description. There
were but few old books, and the modem ones were very mixed in
character. I looked through the poetry shelves and found the usual
volumes of Tennyson and Browning, etc. *In Vinculis' was there
with the leaves cut open-, but not the * Sonnets of Proteus,' which I
had given him in 1884. Presently Miss Helen Gladstone came in, the
head of Newnham College, and I had some talk with her and found
her agreeable in an austere way. Then the G.O.M. arrived with
George, and we all sat down to tea. I sat by Mrs. Gladstone, good old
soul, who speedily thawed to me, while the G.O.M. still went on talk-
ing about books. He had got a rare edition of the Prayer Book and
made it his text, with interludes of discussion, about the various quali-
ties of tea. I asked him what ' N. or M.' meant in the baptismal
service, but he could suggest no explanation. From that he went on
to the revised version of the Bible, which he called 'abominable'; it
was not the first duty of a translator to be accurate but to render the
spirit of the book. This the revisers had missed. *You see,' inter-
posed Mrs. Gladstone, in the tone of one anxious and apologetic ; ' he
is so conservative, and yet people say of him, etc., etc' * He has the
spirit of reverence,' I said. *Ah yes,' she exclaimed, beaming, *that
is just it ; you have said exactly what is true.' But the old man paid
no attention and went prattling on, talking of all things in the same
absorbed way, apparently without sense of their proportion, and for
talking's sake, heedless of our remarks, until at last he settled down into
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74 Gladstone [1892
a * Quarterly Review ' article and said no more. That, I fancy, is his
common domestic life.
" Mary Drew's little girl Dorothy was there, running about without
shoes or stockings, and the Spitz dog which Margot had described to
me and which had brought in a stick with it to the drawing-room, but
I did not notice that Mr. G. paid attention to either. He did not im-
press me much with the matter of his conversation, impressive as it
was in manner. All he said was essentially commonplace. Once he
corrected George for pronouncing ' mythological * short as ' mithologi-
cal! Meanwhile Mrs. Gladstone gave me an account of an adventure
Mr. G. had had two days before with a cow in the park. * It was a
strange cow,' she said, ' which had got in by accident and found itself
in Mr. G.'s path as he was walking alone, and when he would have
driven it out of his way, it turned on him and knocked him down. It
stood over him but did not gore him. This,' said Mrs. Gladstone, * was
very unusual in a cow. He tried to rise, but at first he could not, for
he had not the breath, but afterwards he managed to get behind a
tree and the cow trotted away.' Poor old soul, she touched me with
her devotion for him. Of himself I carried away the mixed impres-
sion I have had of him before, one of disappointment at finding less
than I should have found to worship.
"Hawarden House, the modern castle, is one of the end of last
century, very comfortable and nice inside with no great pretension to
architecture — outside it is a poor castellated gothic structure. The
old castle, which stands in the grounds a little way off, and to which I
ran up after tea, is a very interesting ruin. On the whole, we agreed,
as we drove home, that we had enjoyed our visit, and that the pilgrim-
age had been well worth making. The G.O.M. saw Sibell to the door
himself, with Mrs. Gladstone and the others. The younger men had
been out shooting meanwhile in the Park.
"3rrf Sept, — Travelled in the train on my way home with Frank
Villiers. He has just been made Private Secretary to Rosebery at the
Foreign Office, and professes great admiration for him as ' a statesman
without personal ambition.' We discussed the Egyptian question pretty
thoroughly and the release of Arabi. With regard to evacuation he
said that everybody was agreed it would be dangerous and impossible
to hold Egypt permanently. Baring had been doing what he could to
prepare things for a withdrawal of the troops, but he could find no men
among the Egyptians capable of carrying on reforms. Baring had
told them at the Foreign Office of my idea of having a Fellah Min-
istry, but could not get capable men. He would be very glad if he
could find them, but where were they ? I said that I had given Baring
the names of suitable Fellah Ministers, but that he had told me the
late Khedive would never consent to employ them. I was at one with
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Baring as to the kind of reforms wanted, but disagreed with his way
of carrying them out through Englishmen. It could have no other re-
sult but to make evacuation more and more difficult. ' You may wait
ten years/ I said, * and you will find no better occasion to evacuate
than the present. I mean, of course, if you really wish it.' He assured
me over and over again that that was their policy and their desire.
About Arabi he was not encouraging, but I am to call Rosebery's atten-
tion to the matter.
"15th Sept, — At Crabbet. I have seen Countess Hoyos several
times. She rode here one morning, and I have been twice to tea at
Paddockhurst (their country place in Sussex, two miles from Crabbet).
Her daughter, just married to Herbert Bismarck, she tells me, is su-
premely happy, having tamed her Bismarck to a point which could not
have been believed. He had been a great coureur de femmes, women
mainly of the baser sort, and she has touched him to an ideal love. He
is forty-three, she twenty, a beautiful romance.
" I have had an answer from Rosebery, that is from Villiers, of a
most civil kind, but with the usual official evasion of my questions. Sir
Wilfrid Lawson has also written.
" lyth Sept, — A letter from Margot. She has been paying visits
with her political admirers, Haldane and Asquith. She describes all
in a few words as well as such descriptions cduld possibly be.,
" Lady Isytion was here to-day with her girls to say good-bye before
starting for the Cape. Meynell also, and his wife. After dinner he,
Me3mell, gave me a most interesting account of Cardinal Manning's
last days. Me)mell was the old man's confidant in his many disappoint-
ments and vexations. The Cardinal's mind had grown large in the
later years of his life, and his view of the Catholic Church, and of
Christianity, comprehensive of all sects and creeds. He was at odds
with his fellow bishops in England, who looked upon him as unortho-
dox, and worried him a thousand ways, and he had no one of them all
for a friend. His last hours had been troubled by the worries of his
clergy. There had been a dispute between two of the Bishops, which
he had referred to Rome, and which caused him great annoyance, and
when he was taken ill the Bishop of Salford (Herbert Vaughan, after-
wards Cardinal Vaughan) was unfortunately staying with him, whom
he specially disliked. His old servant Newman had died, and there
was no one to take care of him. He refused to believe that he was
dying, and had a strong desire to live, and Vaughan was hard on him
in his insistence on certain formalities demanded of a dpng Archbishop,
then having got his way Vaughan left him, and he lay all night alone,
and was found next morning insensible and dying, his fire out in the
grate and no one with him. Truly death is bitter even to the righteous.
" Me3mell told me also of a new movement within the body of the
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76 Early Modernism [1892
English Catholic clergy, of the most revolutionary kind, especially
among the Capuchins, and that the Cardinal in some measure S3rmpa-
thized with it. A movement of the widest sort, rationalistic and mystic,
which embraced all forms of religion and repudiated the finality of any
doctrine of the Church, a kind of positivism and creed of humanity
in which Plato, and Buddha, and Mohammed were alike canonized as
saints, and Christ himself hardly more than these. He assured me
that such doctrines were widely held by the younger priests, and that
some of their most zealous and able exponents were to be found among
our monks at Crawley. It was no heresy, lie said, and the General of
the Capuchins who had come from Rome to put it down had gone
back converted. This sounds to me altogether incredible, but he prom-
ised to send me the writings of the new creed in print." [This was the
first word I had heard of the Modernist movement, afterwards so
notorious.]
Mr. Meynell tells me that I unintentionally misrepresent the views
held by Father Cuthbert and his friends. " Not one," he says, '* of
that fervent group of young Franciscans but fixed all his hope and all
his faith on the doctrine, fundamental and final, of the divinity ol
Christ."
" i8^A Sept. (Sunday). — Meynell's talk has done me good. It opens
to me a view of a religious position, not absolutely illogical, in which I
may still be loyal to all my ideas without quarreling with the Catholic
Church. I mean to talk the matter over with Father Cuthbert, the
young Capuchin at our Monastery, whom Meynell speaks of as the
leading light of the new doctrine.
" 22nd Sept. — Lunched at the Travellers' Club with Frank Bertie,
whom I had not seen for years, and we had much talk about men and
things of a past generation. He tells me Evelyn Baring is seriously
ill with eczema in Scotland, one of the plagues with which Moses
afflicted Pharaoh. I hope it may determine him to let the Egyptians
go. Philip Currie was also there and Sanderson.
"26th Sept. — Margot writes that she's starting a paper to be
called 'The Petticoat,' in collaboration with Betty Balfour, Mrs.
Homer, Mrs. Singleton, and other women friends.
** 27th Sept. — On a visit to Frampton, a very pretty place with a
house of the early eighteenth century, the period I like best for domes-
tic architecture. Our host, Brinsley Sheridan, is a typical country
gentleman given to sport ; his wife, a Motley, sister of Lady Harcourt,
with two nice daughters, and there are sons, but all the boys are at
school.
*' There is a Miss Fetherstonhaugh staying in the house who showed
me letters she had received from young de Winton from Uganda,
written in the mixed missionary and fighting language one is familiar
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1892] Morris and Magnusson 77
with in Gordon's letters to his sister. These people believe they have
a mission from God to establish the British flag, ' the dear old Union
Jack/ throughout the world and to maintain it there with fire and
sword. Pizarro, no doubt, wrote in the same strain from Peru, when
he destroyed the beautiful old world of the Incas. Truly 'civiliza-
tion is poison.' Weld Blundell also is staying here, a clever man with
much knowledge and a close reasoner, with whom I have been discuss-
ing Eastern questions. His view is the commercial Imperialist one
held by all English civilians who have spent their lives beyond the
Suez Canal, that of seizing and keeping markets. We were to have
gone to Malwood, but Sir William Harcourt has been summoned to
London on the Uganda question and our visit is deferred.
" 1st Oct, — Lunched with Morris at Hammersmith and his Icelandic
friend Magnusson, with whom he translates his Sagas. It is curious
how much alike the two are physically — short, thick, sturdy men of
the pale-haired, blue-eyed type. Both, too, have the same socialistic
views, only Magnusson is much more professorial in his way of talk-
ing and less light in hand than Morris.
" Our ministers have taken courage and Uganda is to be evacuated.
The ' Daily Telegraph ' has a deliciously naive article in expostulation :
* Uganda,' it says, * was a few years ago a naked people, now they are
all decently clad . . . but there is a tendency, wherever English au-
thority is relaxed among them, to revert to their old terrible habits.'
" 6th Oct, — Tennyson died this morning at his house on Blackdown.
Much speculation as to his successor."
On the 1 2th Oct. I paid my now annual visit to Gros Bois, the party
there being made up of the Gustave Rothschilds, the Comte d^ Turenne,
Lord and Lady Castletown, and the Talbots, and we had our usual
shootings.
" 14th Oct, — Coming home Wagram entertained us with episodes
of the French game laws. He remembers three poachers having been
shot dead at various times in the park, two by himself and one by the
keepers. In his own case the man had first fired on him. In the third
case the poacher was unarmed; in none was any inquiry made. He
and the keepers buried the dead men quietly where they fell. The last
of these three events happened as long ago as 1863 and ' Nobody,' he
said, * knows now where they lie but myself ; the keepers who helped to
bury them are all dead; it has kept poachers most eflfectually away.
En plaine (meaning the open fields) one does not take justice thus to
oneself, but inside the Park it is best to do so and say nothing.'
Wagram is a fine survival of the old sporting days in France, against
which the revolution declaimed. . . . What is pleasant in the sport
here is Wagram's familiar way with his men; they are all devoted to
him.
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78 A Visit to Ferriires [1892
" 16th Oct. (Sunday) — An excursion to Ferrieres. We drove over
all of us in a private omnibus, changing horses on the road. Castle-
town and I on the top, the ladies inside. I find Castletown a well-
informed man, more interesting that I had at first imagined. He saw
a great deal of the war of 1870-71, being with the Prussians at the
battle of Champigny in this neighbourhood, ' when,' he says, ' if Ducros
had only pushed on another two hours he would have broken the Prus-
sian lines and effected his sortie/ Castletown was with the Prussian
headquarters staff and knew how anxious they were. He was also with
Chanzy in the south, running great risks of being shot as a spy. We
talked, too, of 'Ireland and Egypt. He is a strong Unionist, but a
fair one in his reasoning, and would be a Nationalist if there was hope
of a complete separation.
" Ferrieres (which is the principal country seat of the Rothschilds
in France) stands in splendid woods through which we drove for some
two miles before reaching the chateau. The house itself is disappoint-
ing, * une commode renversee ' as Bismark called it when he slept there
during the Prussian occupation. It is surrounded with grounds
d VAnglaise, a fashion which I like less than the old French gardens.
Inside it is like a monstrous Pall Mall Club decorated in the most out-
rageous Louis Philippe taste, a huge hall lit with a skylight and horribly
overdone in its furnishing and upholstery. In the midst, a pathetic
little old woman in black, Madame Alphonse Rothschild, in perpetual
mourning for her departed beauty. It grieved me to remember her in.
the days of her glory; and when she picked some carnations from a
vase and gave us each one, I asked for a red one and reminded her
of how I had seen just such another in her hair nearly thirty years
ago (it was in 1863) when I saw her for the first time being dressed
in a mantilla for a bull-fight at Madrid. A faint smile illumined her
gray face an instant but evidently without recognition of me, and she
relapsed into her little old woman's talk about her dogs and birds.
Presently we were joined by a pretty little young woman, her daughter,
Madame Effrusi, also in black, a very attractive little creature who
showed us round the grounds, with the aviaries and menageries, and
entertained us with pleasant talk. This gave colour to a rather colour-
less afternoon and in spite of its architectural monstrosities I have car-
ried away a pretty recollection of Ferrieres and the two little quite
diminutive gentlewomen living there.
" 17th Oct. — To-day we made another expedition, there being no
shooting, to the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte. We drove to Brunois,
thence by train to Melun, where we lunched at the Grand Monarque,
and on in a fly to Vaux. Vaux is without exception the most splendid
dwelling-house it has been my lot to visit. There is nothing in Eng-
land to compare with it, not Blenheim, not Castle Howard, hardly
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1892] Carolus Duran 79
Hampton Court. It is what Versailles ought to have been and failed
to be, the ideal of all that is great and sumptuous in the French Renais-
sance style, and at the same time not too vast, a house to live in, not
merely a palace for show. Its present proprietor, one Sommier, a
sugar merchant, bought it a few years back for i 100,000, and has spent
another i 100,000 on restoring and furnishing it, all fortunately in the
perfection of good taste. His son, a plain youth with yellow hair,
rather ungainly, but with good voice and manner, received us on the
perron, and showed us over everything sensibly and with knowledge.
One feels happy, sugar or no sugar, that this architectural gem has
fallen into such reverent and understandrng hands. It had been
offered to the Gustave Rothschilds, who fortunately let it go by. It
is now being carefully put in order, the square mile of garden brought
back from the waste into which it had fallen, statues and vases re-
placed, and water let in to the ruined piices d'eau ; this is real restora-
tion, not a stone has been scraped, not an idea improved on. When
one looks at a creation like this, dating from two hundred and more
years ago, the talk of modem progress in the nineteenth century sounds
childish. From Vaux to Ferrieres is as great a descent in the intellec-
tual work of man as from Shakespeare to Mark Twain.
" Coming into the hall this evening for dinner, I saw a grey-headed
man entering at the opposite door, whom for a moment I took to be
Leighton, but it proved to be Carolus Duran, and he tells me he has
been several times taken for Leighton. Duran (or M. Carolus, as he
prefers to be called, Berthe says, on the pretext that he is of Spanish
origin, his real name being Durand, of a cotton-spinning family at
Lille) is an excellent specimen of the French artiste and homme d'esprit.
An exceedingly good talker on a variety of subjects, art, poetry, lan-
guages, music, and his own heart. We drew him out on every one,
and on every one he said things worth remembering. He talked of the
Chicago Exhibition and the prospects of painting in America. Most
American artists, he said, had been his own or Meissonier's pupils.
Art was a matter of education. The Americans would learn it in time.
In poetry he declaimed against Victor Hugo, and exalted Musset, cit-
ing corresponding passages to Musset's advantage. * All great poets,'
he said, ' are exponents of their own country's genius and ideas, not
of any other country's (see Shakespeare, Moliere, Dante, Cervantes),
this, although they are also for all mankind.' He did not think much
of Byron, but quoted Goethe and one or two Italians. He told us he
was Spanish, and had learned Spanish entirely by ear and with a per-
fect accent, but his quotations hardly bore that out. His Italian ac-
cent was better. On music he seemed to talk well, adoring Wagner,
Berlioz, and Beethoven, and he sang snatches of Malageiias in illus-
tration of his ideas on oriental music. Lastly about his own sentiments
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8o Dufferin on Egypt [1892
and feelings he was very eloquent. *J'airae la mer comme on aime
tout etre capricieux et qui vous fait souff rir/ He regretted his * vingt-
cinq ans/ and would have nothing to do with ascetically avoiding pleas-
ure. At the same time he assured us that he now made no more
declarations of love, seeing that he was fifty-four. ' You do this,' Lady
Castletown said, 'out of timidity?' ' Non,' he answered, 'c'est par
pudeur.' That seemed to me a pretty mot. On the whole an interest-
ing man.
" igth Oct, — To Paris and called on Lord Dufferin at the Embassy,
who was in the same room that Lytton used to work in. He was very
charming to me, asked me to give him a copy of my new book for
his ' Helen's Tower,' a library where he has got together 400 volumes
presented by authors, and which is named after his mother. I asked
him to help me about Arabi's release, and he spoke nicely of him,
and promised to say a word in his favour next time he should have
an opportunity. On the general question of Eg3rpt he also volunteered
some remarks. He said that on the whole policy of retaining or aban-
doning a Mediterranean influence no responsible person would be will-
ing to give an opinion uncalled for ; but that, if Egypt was to be evacu-
ated, there was only one way, namely, to build up some sort of self-
government. He was especially opposed to Turkish rule, and had
always intended, in the settlement he made, that the Government should
be in the hands of the native Egyptians, not the Turks. He had de-
vised his ' Constitution ' for Egypt with that idea. He was not one
of those who thought popular government foreign to Eastern ideas.
On the contrary the East has been the home of Councils and Mejlisses ;
and he had always been of opinion that, if you could put Egypt to work
in vacuo, there was nothing to prevent success. He had been glad to
see that Baring recognized the help rendered him by the Councils, and
he had written to tell him so. We then discussed how the power of
the Councils might be increased, and also the safeguards against inter-
ference from Constantinople. He talked with so much interest that
his servant had to come in and remind him that he had an appointment
to breakfast somewhere, and so it ended. I have written a sonnet for
his book, * Helen's Tower.' Back to London in the evening.
" 24th Oct. — Lunched with Amir Ali and his English wife. They
seem happy together, and have two children. He gave me much Indian
news, said that the Hindoos, especially of Patna, were in communication
with Russia, and that if Russia took possession of Persia, Asia Minor
and Afghanistan, there would certainly be a rising in India; the Mo-
hammedans have separated themselves entirely from the Congress party.
" Dined with Sheffield at the Travellers'. Talking about old times,
when he first went with Lyons as private secretary to Paris, the people
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1892] Uganda 81
at the Foreign Office had told him to note carefully every word of
the Emperor's, as all he said was of political value, but after a few
interviews Lyons perceived the emptiness of the Imperial reputation.
Napoleon Ill's conversation was that of ' a man threatened with soften-
ing of the brain.' Fleury came to them and explained that the Em-
peror was often in this state, having over indulged himself with women,
remaining helpless in bed for two or three days at a time, incapable of
attending to anything, and with all the affairs of the Empire left in
the hands of his wife. This was in 1867. Claremont (the military
attache), Sheffield says, sent report after report to the Foreign Office
predicting a collapse of the French army if there should be war, but
nobody paid any attention. He told me that he had been invited by
Frank Lawley to a dinner of reconciliation between Gladstone and
Labouchere. It ought to be amusing, but what an absurdity political
life is! [The Honourable Frank Lawley had been Gladstone's pri-
vate secretary a good many years before when Gladstone was Chancellor
of the Exchequer, but having been found speculating in Consols his
career was put an end to, and he remained a broken man, not only
politically but socially. Public morality has strangely altered since.]
"26th Oct. — Lunched with Labouchere, who was as usual most
amusing. He told me the whole story of his correspondence with Glad-
stone about their not asking him to join the Cabinet. ' The best of the
joke is,' he said, ' it was not the Queen at all who prevented it. I ar-
ranged with Gladstone I should lay it on the Queen, and that he should
then lay it on himself. It really was Rosebery. At the Cabinet
Council about Uganda Rosebery was in a minority of one for retain-
ing Uganda, but Gladstone weakly consented to his putting in the clause
granting a three months' respite, and Rosebery at once got up an
agitation in the press. ' He is an ambitious young man,' Labouchere
said, ' and wants to be Prime Minister, playing the part Palmerston
formerly played with the help of the Tories against his own party. We
shall have to join against him, and get up a cry Delendum est Rose-
bery.' [This is precisely what happened, and not in Rosebery 's case
only, but afterwards in that of his understudy, Sir Edward Grey.]
"yd Nov. — Dined with Esme Howard, and went afterwards to
hear a lecture by Captain Lugard at the Geographical Society. Lugard,
a little, thin, dark-faced man, not unpleasing, but his lecture terribly
dull. The theatre crammed, for the agitation got up for annexing
Uganda grows daily. Philip Currie was there."
The question of evacuating or retaining Uganda was one of critical
importance with the Liberal party, for it involved the whole question
of extending, or limiting British Imperial responsibilities in Africa.
Our military party was working its hardest, helped by the Tory opposi- .
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82 Morris on the LcmrecUeship [1892
tion in the House of Commons and secretly by Rosebery at the Foreign
Office, against Gladstone and the Radicals for the extension, and
eventually succeeded with the results we have seen.
" 4th Nov. — ' Esther ' is out. I have sent copies to Gladstone,
Morley, George Meredith, William Watson, and Knowles.
" To Sir William Harcourt's, whom I went to see in Downing Street.
I found him just going to a Cabinet Council, and in high good humour.
' Well,' he said, ' will you go to Egypt as Commissioner to effect the
evacuation?' I said, 'Yes, if you will recall Baring.' He chuckled,
' It is not Egypt alone they want us to swallow, but the whole of East
Africa. Rhodes was with me yesterday, and showed me this map'
(pointing to one on the table), 'where you will see the territories he
has grabbed. He has put up a telegraph already as far as Niassa
( ? Nyanza), and means to carry it on to Uganda, and then to Cairo.
He has offered to run Uganda for £25,000 a year, though he admits
there is nothing to be made of it commercially. You know I am not
much in favour of these things myself, and am for keeping out of
Mediterranean politics, but there are others' (meaning no doubt
Rosebery) ' who won't dance to the music' I said, ' I think you
ought to make up your minds on the general policy, and either go in
for an African Empire, or leave it alone. If you shilly shally first
one way and then another you will get into just the same mess that
you did in 1882.' Then we talked about Egypt. ' Baring,' he said,
' has sent in a memorandum, in which he says that the whole country
is becoming English, and so it is to remain, the Khedive has lost his
popularity as he has become too European.' /. ' Yes, he has brought
back a Viennese woman with him from Vienna.' He. 'What, only
one? Baring says everything is going splendidly, and he, Baring
seems to have his horses well in hand, it would be a pity perhaps to
meddle with him.' /. ' Yes, I have no doubt Baring has and is driv-
ing merrily, but even a timid passenger when he finds the coach is
going to Brighton when it ought to be going to York, may be excused
for taking the reins. He will drive you merrily on to annexation.'
He. ' I would ask you to luncheon, but Waddington (the French Am-
bassador) is coming, and I am afraid your views are too well known.
Come on Tuesday.' And so it is arranged.
"Later to Hammersmith, where I found Morris at his work, but
pleased to see me. * It is all a lie,' he said, ' about their having offered
to make me Laureate. Bryce came to see me and talked of it, but it
was only on his own private account. I was fool enough to tell Ellis,
and he told his son, who must needs repeat it at the National Liberal
Club, and so it got into the papers. I fancy from what I heard if they
.don't offer it to me they will offer it to Swinburne, but perhaps he won't
rtake it.' /. ' It is five to one he will take it.' He. ' That's about
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the betting, but Theodore Watts declares he will refuse. That's per-
haps all the more reason/
" Sth Nov. — A note from Margot, ' au grand galop/ asking me to
luncheon at her sister Oiarlotte's. Their paper is to be called 'To-
morrow, a Woman's Journal for Men.' I was shown the title-page.
It is to come out every two months, and they expect it to run for a
year. They are in straits for a political leader writer, and I suggested
Lady Gregory.
"Sth Nov, — Lunched at 11, Downing Street, with the Harcourts.
Great joking by Sir William about the ' Souls ' journal. I suggested
as a motto for it, solus cum sola, with an armorial coat,
bearing two flat fish osculant all proper. ' Ah,' he said, ' it is their
bodies that I like, and now they are going to show us their souls all
naked in print, I shall not care for them. Isn't that so, Sophy?' (to
his niece, Sophy Sheridan, who sat next to him, pinching her arm.)
He went on to politics : ' We have drawn out a bill this morning," he
said, * which will destroy all temperance in England for many years to
come. We asked Arch ' (the agricultural labour member) ' how many
parishes in England would vote against public-houses, and he said with
conviction " not a single one." *
"22nd Nov. — Crabbet. Two young monks of the Capuchins at
Crawley called on me some days ago — Father Cuthbert and Father
Angelo de Barry — to interest me in a project they have of founding
a working order of St. Francis instead of the old begging one. Father
Cuthbert, who had already spoken to me vaguely of his ideas of
Church reform, sent me to-day a note by Father Angelo, setting forth
the scheme, and asking help for them to get to Rome and lay it before
the Pope. I gave them the money they wanted, £50, with pleasure,
for it seems to me a good and timely undertaking which may well lead
to noble things. [The poor young men went to Rome, but, as was to
be expected, came back with a flea in their ears. They were the leaders
of the Modernist Reform Party in their Order but could not get a
hearing at the Vatican. They very honourably returned to me the
journey money.]
" I am leaving England for Sheykh Obeyd. A trouble to me is the
apparent failure of 'Esther.' It is not reviewed, for which I care
little, but even my friends are silent about it, and several of them dis-
approve. Only from George Meredith has a letter of high approval
come, and one from York Powell at Oxford."
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CHAPTER V
TH£ VEILED PROTECIXHtATE
Our Winter in Egypt of that year, 1892-93, turned out to be full
of incident. I found on arriving there, that the trouble I had foreseen
between the new Khedive Abbas and Sir Evelyn Baring would speedily
come to a head if no attempt were made to carry out Lord Dufferin's
promises to the Egyptians of restoring to them their National Govern-
ment under a constitutional form, and a definite policy adopted for
preparing the country for evacuation. Owing to the pre-occupation
of our Liberal party in England with the affairs of Ireland and other
home politics, the question of Egypt had been allowed to stand over
and nothing had been done. Lord Rosebery at the Foreign Office
had been left to act, or not to act, as he pleased, and he in turn had left
the decision of a policy to Baring, whose idea of Egyptian Government
was to retain all power in his own hands, while acting in the Khedive's
name.
It was the famous policy of " the Veiled Protectorate," the success-
ful carrying out of which needed two essential conditions, first, that
the Khedive should be a consenting party to the make-believe, and,
secondly, that its true nature should be concealed from the general
Egyptian public. The Khedive was expected to name his own ministers,
but the choice of them was to be privately dictated to him by the British
Agent. The Government officials were to wear the Ottoman Fez, but
the more important of them were to be Englishmen. These were to
give advice, not orders, but the advice was always to be obeyed. It
was an ingenius plan, adopted from the Government of British India,
in its dealing with the native states, while a third condition was equally
indispensable, that was the presence behind the British Agent of a
sufficient armed force to give emphasis to his advice and enforce his
will, the Army of Occupation.
Although not a year had yet passed since Abbas' succession to the
Khedivial dignity, he had already rebelled against the position of a
mere puppet, and had managed to gather about him the nucleus of a
new National party, which consisted of what elements there were in
Egypt either of discontent or of such patriotism as was to be found
: Jn the country, half political, half religious, which resented the presence
•..of foreign and Christian rule. The Khedive had been greatly aided
84
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1892] The Veiled Protectorate 85
in this by the publication of Sir Alfred Milner's book, '' England in
Egypt," which I have described already. It had appeared about the
time of the change of Government in England, and had proved an entire
success there as a support to Baring's views, but at Cairo it had had
an exactly opposite effect. It had too candidly revealed the nature of
the Baring policy, unveiling to nakedness the " Veiled Protectorate,"
and as it had been largely read in an Arabic translation at Cairo, it had
caused more alarm than satisfaction there. By the end of the year
1892 the young Khedive was already popular with his native subjects,
while even among Englishmen resident at Cairo it was considered that
Baring had mismanaged the matter, and there was alarm at the grow-
ing ill will that was being manifested between natives and foreigners.
There is no doubt that Baring had been at fault through his lack of
personal courtesy to the young prince, who, having received his educa-
tion in Europe, was well aware of what was due to him, and had suf-
ficient wit to know how to assert himself on occasion. These things
are alluded to in my diary.
" 1st Dec. — Landed at Alexandria and lunched at the Consulate,
where the Consular chaplain, Davis, gave me some idea of how things
were going politically. We had some talk about former Egyptian
times, he having been thirty years resident there. What he said bears
out what my Egyptian friends have always affirmed, namely, that Said
Pasha's reign was the best time the f ellahin ever had ; he is, however,
like all Englishmen here, for a perpetual occupation in order, as they
say, * to keep out the French.' The ladies told stories of the new Khe-
dive Abbas to his disadvantage. He dislikes English soldiers and has
made them move farther away from his palace, and he insists upon
having his own will in trifles, as on one occasion lately when he made
the gate-keepers of the railway open for him, and had forced the
Directors to apologize and dismiss the men because, not knowing who
he was, they had cursed his father. This happened near Ramleh.
We had tea with Sir William and Lady Butler, he being in command
of the English garrison. We went on to Sheykh Obeyd next morning.
"26*A Dec. — To-day, a young fellow, Abderrahman Effendi, was
here, a protege of Abdu's. Talking of Abbas, he told me he was
hand in glove with Riaz and Ahmed Pasha Shukri, and that they all
belonged to the Hesb el Horiyeh (the Party of Liberty). I told him
that if they really wanted Parliamentary Government they must work
for it. The Khedive ought to make known his desire for it. He
should demand it formally in writing, and I would see that their wishes
were represented in the proper quarter. Writing to Loulou Harcourt
about the same time, intending it for his father, I said : ' I should be
glad to know what is intended at the Foreign Office. I consider tha^
there are elements here of a stronger opposition to the English r6gini4
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86 The New National Party [1892-3
than was the case under Tewfik. For the present the Khedive is young
and Cromer plays with him as with a young bear, humouring him in
small matters and excluding him from all real power, and the young
man amuses himself after the manner of his age, but he is certainly
strongly anti-English/
" I understand that the Khedive is in accord with the Constitutional
party here. If so there will be less difficulty than last year in carrying
out Lord Dufferin's programme. I really cannot understand how the
Liberal party in England can with any face refuse to do this. It is the
only possible chance of setting the Egyptians on their own legs^
" 31^^ Dec. — I have been taken up for the last forty-eight hours with
reading Milner's book about Egypt which is just out. It is by far the
ablest defence I have seen of Cromer's policy, and may be considered as
his own apologia, for most of it must have been taken down from his
dictation or at any rate in concert with him ; even in form and arrange-
ment of subjects. It is identical with Cromer's report of 1891. There
is a great deal of truth in it and also a great deal of the suppression of
truth. ,
'* i6th Jan. 1893. — Went to Cairo, the first time this winter, on
business with Scott (then at the Ministry of Justice). I found every-
body there in a great turmoil, as the Khedive has just dismissed Mus-
tapha Pasha Fehmi and other Ministers from their posts, and has
appointed new ones, with Fakhri Pasha as President of the Council,
without Baring's cognizance. Scott said it was a coup d'etat, and so it
seems to be.
" iSth Jan. — Baring has refused to recognize the new Ministry until
he has communicated with the English Government. He has given
the Khedive time to reflect, and the Khedive, finding himself insuffic-
iently backed up by the French, has already given in and a compromise
has been come to, Fakhri being replaced by Riaz.
"20th Jan. — Ismail Jowdat^ has been here and has told me the
whole story of the intrigue of the last few days, thought it dates in its
beginning from much earlier. It is one of those complicated episodes
which make up Egyptian history.
" Abbas, Jowdat says, arriving from Europe a year ago with Euro-
pean notions, readily fell in at first with Baring's plans. He took up
the quarrel with Constantinople Baring led him into, about his firman
of appointment, and for a while was on bad terms with the Sultan.
Mukhtar Pasha, however, and de Reverseaux, the French Consul-
General, have managed latterly to bring him round into opposition,
and he has made up with the Sultan and is strongly anti-English.
They have managed this with the help of the young Sheykh el Bekri,
I ^ Ismail Bey Jowdat, director of the Cairo police under the Nationalist Govern-
jnent in 18B2. See my volumes, " Secret History " and " Gordon at Khartoum."
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1893I Sheykh el Bekri 87
who was brought up with Abbas and has great influence with hint
This young man was at first, like Abbas, under Baring's influence, and
Baring sent him to England last stmimer and introduced him to Glad-
stone and others, boasting that the Egjrptians were becoming English
in their sentiments. The young man is of importance from his relig-
ious position, which is hereditary. On his way home, however, he
passed through Constantinople and there fell under the contrary influ-
ence of the Sultan, who gave him high orders and decorations, and of
Prince Halim Pasha, whose daughter it has been arranged he shall
marry. He returned to Egypt last autumn altogether in the Sultan's
interest, and has since received from Mukhtar Pasha a pension of £300
a month out of the Sultan's privy purse. Abbas, disapproving of his
visit to Constantinople, refused to see him on his return. Nevertheless,
a reconciliation was effected through the mediation of the Khedive's
mother, urged thereto by a certain religious Sheykh of Alexandria,
entitled Sheykh Tekkiet Gulshani, who desiring to have his title con-
firmed on his son, which could only be done through the Sheykh el
Bekri's finnan, interceded on his behalf. The Khedive's mother was
this old Sheykh's adopted daughter (god-daughter) and hence his in-
fluence. El Bekri then called on the Khedive and was well received,
and has since influenced him in favour of the Sultan's policy. Mukhtar
and Reverseaux planned between them with Riaz this sudden coup
d* etat which has just taken place, Bekri having got the Khedive to join
it. It was Riaz's suggestion putting Fekri forward, and it has ended
as planned in his own substitution as Minister. The following are the
chief personages concerned in the plot: Mukhtar Pasha, the Sultan's
representative, with his Turkish secretary Mohsin Bey, Abd el Salaam
Pasha Moelhi, Ibrahim Moelhi and his son Mohammed, Prince Hus-
sein, the Sheykh el Bekri, the Sheykh Gulshani, Mohammed Bey Zoghi
and his brother, Rushti Bey, Yussuf Sadyk, son of the old Muffettish,
Ahmed Bey el Kharmili, and Ahmed Bey Sofani, of the Legislative
Council, Mazlum Pasha, master of ceremonies, Tigrane Pasha, Zekki
Pasha, and others. They have made up their ministry thus: Riaz
Pasha, Mazlum Pasha, Boutros Pasha Ghali, Tigrane, and Zekki Pasha.
"Later in the day Fenwick Pasha called upon me. He regretted
that Lord Cromer had not gained a more certain victory in the crisis.
'Cromer,' he said, 'had offered Mustafa Fehmi to back him if he
would remain in office, but Mustafa declined, probably afraid.' The
immediate causes of the coup d'Stat were first the publication at Cairo
of Milner's book, and second the order issued by Coles Pasha (the
English adviser of the Ministry of the Interior) to the Mudirs in his
own name instead of that of the Egyptian Minister.
" I have written to Labouchere and to Sir William Harcourt."
This was the Khedive Abbas' first revolt against Cromer. The?
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88 Sir Edgar Vincent [1893
ground of the revolt was not ill-chosen, as the Khedive was without
question within his constitutional and legal right to name his own Min-
isters, and it at once dissolved the illusion Cromer had entertained that
his and not the Khedive's authority was popular in Egypt. It was
everywhere applauded, and it forced Cromer to abandon his make
believe and telegraph to London for English troops, a clear admission
of his political impotence. It was a first rent made in the famous
"Veiled Protectorate," and though Cromer in his book describes it
as a victory, it was one of physical force only, not moral force.
"On the 26th of January Hardinge of the Legation^ was here.
He told us that when Riaz was informed of the arrival of reinforce-
ments from England he smiled a blue smile and remarked that they
would be welcome, as English regiments had always been well-behaved
in the country. ' Riaz,' said Hardinge, ' may not love us, but at least
he will be an open enemy.' It appears that Cromer really threatened
the Khedive, giving him twenty-four hours to make up his mind, and
that the English regiments in garrison had ball cartridges served out.
They intended to surround the palace and keep the Khedive prisoner if
he refused, but what more does not appear.
"30th Jan. — Sir Edgar Vincent and his wife, with Lady Alice
Portal and Mr. Eldon Gorst, came to tea. I was glad to find that
Vincent took quite my view of the situation. He said : ' They can't
go on on the old lines, and must either declare a protectorate or evacu-
ate. The change,' he said, ' in public opinion since I was at Cairo three
years ago, is astonishing.' He has been seeing much of Riaz. As
to Turkey and the Sultan he confirms all that I have heard of the
improvement. * The resuscitation,' he said, ' of the Ottoman Empire is
the most remarkable phenomenon of our day.' And so it is."
Several others have called, all telling the same story, that Riaz has
the whole public with him, and that the Khedive is popular everywhere.
Only my neighbor, Selim Faraj, being a timid man and a Christian, was
frightened when I talked of evacuation as near. He thought it would
be followed by a persecution of Christians. ' It is not,' he said, ' as it
used to be in Egypt. Ever since the affair of 1882 there has been a
growing hatred between Mohammedans and Christians.' This is true,
but whose fault is it?
" 5^ Feb. — Parliament has met and Her Majesty has made her
speech, to the effect that the sending of troops to Eg3rpt does not indi-
cate a change of policy, also that the Khedive has given her assurances
that he will act in co-operation with her representatives.
" 14th Feb. — Went in to Cairo to see the Sheykh el Bekri. Moham-
med Moelhi met me at the station and we drove to a Mowlid [a relig-
: ^Sir Arthur Hardinge, then Secretary of Legation at Cairo, afterwards our
Minister at Brussels.
Digitized by
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1893] Sheykh el Bekri Described 89
ious birthday feast] in the Bab esh Shariyeh, where we found the
young Sheykh in a house decorated for the occasion. He arrived as
we arrived, and we went in together. There was a great crowd of
people, but the Selamlik was empty, and we sat down with EI Bekri
and talked in French, while religious Sheykhs and others presently
came in to pay their respects to him. The Sheykh el Bekri is a young
man about twenty-five, of no very imposing appearance, small and pale,
very plainly dressed in white turban gombaz and abbo, you might take
him for one of the Azhar students, but he has a certain quiet dignity and
is most intelligent. He talks French perfectly. I discussed the situa-
tion with him both as to the exiles and as to current politics. On the
political situation he talked very sensibly, and urged me strongly to call
on the Khedive and talk it over with him. I said : ' I will call on leav-
ing Egypt to ask him pardon for the exiles, and then if he chooses to
speak to me on other things I will discuss them with him.* But I
explained that my situation was rather a delicate one, as I had formerly
been exiled and had been put under an obligation not to interfere;
still I was in communication with Sir William Harcourt, and any mes-
sage the Khedive might choose to give me I would deliver. The
Sheykh el Bekri told me that when he was in England last summer he
had seen Gladstone, and Gladstone had spoken strongly to him in the
sense of evacuation and against Lord Cromer's policy. He could not
understand that he should now be supporting it. I explained the politi-
cal intrigues at home and Rosebery's position in the Cabinet. He
seemed well acquainted with men and things in England. I gathered
from him that the quarrel between the Khedive and Lord Cromer was
very much a personal one. At this point music began outside and
chanting, and our sofa was turned round to the window and we con-
tinued our talk, but with interruptions. I arranged, however, with
him that he should speak to the Khedive of my readiness to be of
service to him, and that he was to arrange an audience before I left
Egypt. This will oblige me to put off my journey (the one I had in-
tended to take) to the Fayum. The thing is interesting, and reminds
me not a little of old days. I never thought to become the Khedive's
confidant after all that has happened.
" 15th Feb, — Sir George Bowen came and spent the day. A man
of enlightened ideas, and much practical experience in English pro-
tectorates, the Ionian Islands, Malta, etc., where he has served officially.
We talked out the Egyptian question fully, and were pretty much agreed
about it. He says, the Liberal Government at home would willingly
evacuate, but fears public opinion. He has talked much since he has
been in Egypt with Riaz, and Nubar, and Cromer. Nubar regrets
that England did not annex in 1882. Cromer admits that he does not
know what to do. There are three possible courses: (i) To annex,
Digitized by
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90 Sir George Bowen 1^893
which would cause an European war. (2) To evacuate, which Eng-
lish opinion would not stand, and (3) To stay on as we are. This
last is what he (Cromer) intends to do. Bowen confirms all I have
said of the universality of popular feeling against us here, the desire
that everyone has to see us gone (not personal hatred). He finds the
Copts quite as much against us as the Mohammedans. He understands
the feeling as political, and patriotic, not fanatical. He lays much of
the blame on Cromer, who is not, he thinks, the sort of man to acquire
the confidence of a young Oriental Prince. ... He asked me my solu-
tion, and I told him that I thought the English garrison might be with-
drawn to Suez as a compromise, that would satisfy the cry in England
about the route to India. He is in communication with Lord Kim-
berley and will write to him, and I trust may do some good, though the
Liberal party seems to have gone in for a thorough debauch of Jingo-
ism.
" 2ist Feb. — Again to see the Sheykh el Bekri, this time in his own
palace, formerly Abbas Pasha's, where I had once been in his father's
time in 1 88 1. He is certainly a most clever and charming young man,
knowing everything about the politics in Europe and Constantinople
as well as in Egypt. He sees Riaz constantly, and vouches for Riaz
as a sincere opponent of Cromer, and supporter of Abbas. Riaz holds
other language to the English here. I told Sheykh el Bekri that I
thought it very important the Khedive should state in some official
document the exact nature of the promise he made to Cromer as to
his being ' willing to follow the advice of Her Majesty's Government
on all important matters,' whereas the Khedive has told deputations
that have waited on him that all he promised was ' to consult the Brit-*
ish Resident.' This he ought to make clear. Sheykh el Bekri assured
me that under present circumstances Abbas could count on the Sultan's
support. He is advising the Khedive to act in ever3^hing through and
with the support and countenance of the Legislative Council. This is
the right road.
"2yd Feb. — To Cairo to order a black coat, the Khedive being
punctilious on the score of clothes. Fortunately I found one at the
English tailor's ready made. [It had been ordered for Oliver Montagu
who had just died at Cairo, and had never worn it.] Had a long talk
with Sackville^ who thinks things very unsatisfactory, the European
Powers would not allow our annexation, the Turks would come from
Constantinople if we went.
" 24th Feb. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu came for lunch and stayed
the afternoon. I had not seen him since the coup d'itat, and was anx-
ious for his opinion. He is strongly in favour of Riaz who, he says,
1 Lionel Lord Sackville, formerly of the Diplomatic Service, and Her Majesty's
Minister at Washington.
Digitized by
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1893]' Abdu on the Occupation 91
may be dq)ended on, not so Tigrane or Boutros. Tigrane, Artin» and
the Christians generally do all they can to destroy Moslem education.
Riaz is a tyrant, but he is honest. He gave me his opinions of the
various Englishmen employed in the country ; * the only good ones/ he
said, * are Scott, Garstein, and Corbett. It has been the introduction
of so many inferior Englishmen in the last three years that has ruined
English influence.' He laughed much at Wallace and his school of
agriculture, and at Willcox with his reforms of the Arabic language.
He is very glad I am to see the Khedive, and wants me to impress on
him the necessity of keeping well with Riaz, and of taking up young
Mohammedans rather than Armenians and Syrians. He would also
work in a Constitutional sense. 'We do not mind,' he said, 'the
English being here for a year, or two years, or five years, so long as
they do not stay altogether. It would be better for the country as giv-
ing time for the growth of the Fellah party, but if there is danger of
annexation we are quite ready to run the risk of a little t)rranny from
the Turks, rather than the other greater risk ; if you will evacuate to-
morrow we shall all rejoice.' Now Abdu is probably the most philo-
English of the Egyptians.
" On the 25th February an interview with me, which had been pub-
lished in the * Pall Mall Gazette,' having been reprinted in the * Bos-
phore Egyptien,' I wrote to Lord Cromer to explain that I was not
responsible for this, or for joining in any of the attacks made on- him
in the Egyptian newspapers. * In England,' I said, ' it is different.
There as long as we occupy Egypt without annexing it, the Egyptian
question must remain a subject of public discussion, and I am sure you
will not think that with the strong views I hold on the injustice of
destroying Eg3rptian Nationality, my expressing myself on the subject
was unfair or uncalled for.' In answer he said, while thanking me for
my letter, ' I cannot, of course, take the smallest exception to your
expressing your views on Egyptian questions in any form you may
think fit, neither did I for a moment imagine that you wished to make
a personal attack on myself.' I quote this as showing what my rela-
tions with Cromer were at this and in subsequent times when we quar-
relled politically.
" 2Sth Feb, — Went this morning by appointment to see the Khedive
at Abdin Palace. I found him in the same room as a year ago, and he
came to meet me at the door. He received me very cordially, and
talked throughout with a great show of frankness and confidence.
His manner is certainly excellent, and he has a wonderful command of
words for so young a man, with a very frank, agreeable smile. He
b^an about his farm at Koubbah, which he said interested him far
more than anything at Abdin, and we discussed the subject of horse-
breeding and the growth of bersim hejazi. Then he went on to politics.
Digitized by
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92 The Khedive Abbas Talks [1893
He thanked me for having spoken in his favour in the P.M.G. inter-
view. * The whole English Press/ he said, * is against me.' I asked
him for a history of what had happened. He said : ' As long ago as
the end of last summer, when Mustafa Pasha (Fehmy) returned from
Europe, Palmer (the Financial Adviser) came to me and complained
of my having spoken against him. I asked him how he knew I had
done so. He said the people of the Palace were talking. Then Hard-
inge came with the same complaint, but could not tell me who it was
that had spoken. When Lord Cromer arrived he came to me and told
me that I was becoming very unpopular (laughter) in the country be-
cause I was not cordial with Mustafa Pasha. The fact is Mustafa
is an invalid, and has to go in the summer to Europe. He is not fit
to be Prime Minister. When he fell ill. Lord Cromer objected to my
taking Tigrane, and offered me a choice of several quite incapable per-
sons — Balig Pasha, who is a Cypriote, Affet Pasha, who is one of the
worst of men, and Ahmed Shukri, who is quite incapable.'
He then gave me an account of what had happened between him
and Cromer as to the promise of following English advice. I asked
him to tell me the exact words, and he said : * We were speaking in
French ' (to me he was speaking in very good English, and I fancy
he keeps his French for his English advisers), *and what I said was,
" Que j'avais tout desir d'agir de concert avec le Gouvemement Anglais
et que je ne manquerais pas de le consulter sur toute chose de grande
importance.' " He denied, however, categorically that he gave any
promise of ' following English advice.' I showed him Cromer's des-
patch published in the Blue Book, which I had in my pocket with the
Queen's Speech, and he said the latter was correct enough, not the
other. I then told him that I considered it very important since that
was so, that he should at once contradict it officially, as afterwards it
would be quoted against him, and he promised to make Tigrane write
an official despatch in that sense. I then asked him whether he could
rely absolutely on Riaz as against Cromer, and he said 'absolutely.'
' If that is so,' I said, ' and you have the Sultan with you, you have
nothing whatsoever to fear.' He said, ' Indeed I am not in the smallest
degree afraid of any one. I consider that I have a great responsibility
here as ruler of the country and a great duty, and I mean to do it. I
do not care what happens.' I noticed that he was reticent about the
Sultan, but I did not press that matter. About Tigrane he said, 'I
know that I can depend better on Riaz than on Tigrane. Tigrane,
being a Christian, has no influence in the country, but Riaz has. We
must make use of Christian ministers as administrators, not as heads
of the Government.' I then asked him about the amnesty for Arabi
and the other exiles. I told him I had had letters from Arabi full of
Digitized by
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1893] My Advice to Abbas 93
loyal expressions towards him, and that I was sure he could count on
him to be faithful to them, that Mahmud Sami might be very useful
to him, and that I hoped he would allow them to return to Egypt He
received this very favourably, and I went on to say that I had always
regretted that his father, Tewfik, had quarrelled with Arabi, and so
brought the English into the country — he did not dissent from this —
that as a matter of fact, Arabi's policy was precisely the same as his.
Abbas* own, namely, to get rid of foreign rule. He said he could not
give me a precise answer about the exiles until he had consulted others,
but that he would take their case into favourable consideration, and
when a proper opportunity occurred he hoped to be able to accede to
my request. I said I would not press it on him at the present moment
of his strained relations with Cromer. I then advised him strongly to
take his Legislative Council into his counsels, and act through it and
through the General Assembly, and I told him of Labouchere's view.
In all this he cordially agreed. A deputation then appeared in the
outer rooni, and I saw that it was time to go. I took my leave, prom-
ising him to state his case in any quarters where I might have influence,
and that he could always count on me for the best of my advice. He
walked to the door with me, making me promise to come and see him,
and his horses at Koubbah. As I was leaving him I said, ' One word
more. If Lord Cromer should leave Egypt, and there is any question
of appointing an Indian officer in succession to him, I advise Your
Highness strongly to object.' He said, * Oh, certainly. I know them.'
And so with great cordiality we parted.
'' I am delighted with the young man. He is able, courageous, and
self-possessed. He reminds me of his grandfather, Ismail, as to wit,
mats en ndeux. He ought to win his game against Cromer.
'' Mohammed Moelhi came in the afternoon. I told him all that has
passed at the palace and he said : ' Now you must go to Constantinople,
the Sultan will wish to see you.' So I shall do if all goes well.
" 1st March, — I received a curious visit from one Abdullah El
Moughera, an Arab of the Moughera tribe of Aflaj, but bom at Shagra,
in Nejd. He told me he had left Nejd as servant to Abdullah Ibn
Thenneyan Ibn Saoud, who went to Constantinople twelve years ago,
wanting to be established in Nejd by the Turkish Government. He had
been employed by the Sultan to try and raise troops among the Anazeh
and other tribes and had succeeded in getting Sotanmi Ibn Shaalan and
other chiefs to go to Constantinople. But Sheykhs Ahmed Essaad and
Abul Huda had been jealous of him and he had left the Sultan's service
and had gone back to Syria. At Jerusalem he had offered his services
to the British Consul to raise an insurrection in Syria, and the Consul
had sent him on to Lord Cromer. He had seen Cromer and Boyle,
Digitized by
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94 A Visit to Riae Pasha [1893
but says he could not make them understand him, as Boyle and he
talked Turkish, but most probably they would not have anything to do
with him, so he came on to me.
" He came again 4th March, and I gave him iio and advised him to
go back to Syria.
" 6th March. — Abderrahman Ismail came and reminded me of what
I had advised about the Khedive declaring himself before Parliament
met. ' You see,' he said, * we have taken your advice.' So it is just
possible that my words may have had some influence in bringing the
crisis on, only I wish they had consulted me as to the way of doing so.
I should not have advised this sudden change of Ministers. But per-
haps it is best as it is. It was not Ahmed Shukri, but Mohammed
Shukri, who, he told me, was working with Riaz. He talked now in
the highest spirits of all that was happening. I told him I thought it
possible negotiations for evacuation might be begun before the end of
the year.
" 7th March. — To-day I went to see Riaz Pasha. To my astonish-
ment he had written me a most amiable note, asking to see me and
signing himself Votre bien dSvoue. So I called at three at his private
house in the Hehniyeh quarter, near the citadel, I suppose the quarter
where his old Jew father lived. He received me with the greatest
cordiality, a little, wizened, gray old man, with a nervous, twitching
face (once Abbas I's dancing boy I) and poured me out his griefs. He
began with a long apology for his conduct in past times and of how he
would have saved the country if it had not been for Arabi's pushing
on too quickly. I did not care to argue that point, as I knew it would
take time, and he is sorry enough now for having got the English into
the country. He is very angry with Cromer for having humbugged
him when he was last in office about evacuation, and on my showing
him what Labouchere had written me about Rosebery's intention never
to evacuate, he threw up his hands in real passion.
" We discussed the necessity of action through the General Assembly,
and he quite agreed. But he strikes me as being rather old and infirm,
and I doubt if he will hurry on fast enough. Unless they act here,
while our Parliament is sitting, they will lose their pains. I talked to
him also about getting the Sultan to agree to the neutralization of
"Egypt in connection with our withdrawal, and he thought it could be
managed if the word neutralization was not used to the Sultan. He
thought also they might come to an agreement to make over the town
of Suez permanently to England, but he begged me not to quote him,
also he promised to draw up a programme of reforms. About the
Khedive's denial that he had promised to follow English advice he did
not feel sure, but said that something he thought had already been
written about it. He is very Oriental and very vague, but there is
Digitized by
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1893] The Sultan of Johore 95
something in him that inspires confidence. When I said, * You must
not repeat all I have told you to Lord Cromer/ he exclaimed, 'Ah,
could you think it?' Lastly I talked to him about Arabi's return, and
he spoke much as the Khedive had spoken, of there being no unwilling-
ness on their part only that the time was inopportune. He compli-
mented me on my constancy to my friend, and we parted on the best
possible terms. Coming with me to the head of the stairs he kept
repeating: 'Ah, que je suis content de vous avoir vu, que je suis
content, que je suis content.'
"iifA March. — I have written my article, 'Lord Cromer and the
Khedive,' for the ' Nineteenth Century,' also letters to Churchill,
Labouchere, and Loulou Harcourt, founded on my talk with the Khe-
dive ; also I2th March to Mr. Gladstone.
" 22nd March. — Mohammed Moelhi tells me of a new trouble. A
certain Ali Bey, Colonel of a regiment quartered at Koubbah, had made
himself conspicuous by his visits to the Khedive, and his congratula-
tions on the issue of the coup d'itat. This has given offence to Kitch-
ener, the new Sirdar, and they have ordered the regiment back tc
Suakim, whence it only came six months ago. The Minister of War,
Yussuf Shudi, one of the old gang, lets Kitchener do what he likes.
[This entry is of more importance than it seems, for this Ali Bey was
Ali Bey Kamel, brother to Mustafa Kamel, afterwards leader of the
National Party, who began his political career by taking up this quarrel
of his brother with Kitchener.]
"3ijf March. — Everard Fielding (he had been stajring with us at
Sheykh Obeyd) brought the Sultan of Johore to see us, a good old
Indian gentleman of very simple manners and much bonhomie. He
lunched with us, notwithstanding Ramadan, talking pleasantly in pidgin
English, which did not altogether mar his dignity. With him a young
Malay, the general of his army, and his English secretary, Captain
Creighton. He complained that though he had been a fortnight at
Cairo, he had as yet seen none but English officials, and that Lord
Cromer had not encouraged him in his desire to go into Egyptian
society. I offered to put him in the way of this, which much delighted
him, and as good luck would have it, Mohammed Moelhi called, while
we were sitting on the roof, and I introduced him and sent Mohammed
back with him to Cairo, to take him, to-day being Friday, to the
Mohammed Ali Mosque for prayers, and I am to take him on Sunday
to the Sheykh el Bekri and get Mohammed Abdu and other Sheykhs to
call on him, and we will put him in the right way to an introduction to
Sultan Abdul Hamid when he goes on to Constantinople.
"2nd April. — To Cairo, where I took the Sultan of Johore to
Sheykh el Bekri, acting for him as interpreter. This was a difficult
matter, as the poor old Sultan's English is hardly intelligible, and his
Digitized by
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96 Johore at Cross Purposes [1893
ideas are most embroiled, and his mamier, too, for an Oriental, is
strangely bad, and I fear he shocked el Bekri by a certain sans-fagon
in spealdng of holy things, though I was able to smooth down his more
unfortunate remarks, as interpreters do. The truth is they were at
cross purposes. What el Bekri wanted to find out was whether the
Sultan had any panislamic ideas, whether he wanted to see Abdul
Hamid at Constantinople for a political purpose, and whether he would
encourage panislamic missionaries at Johore. The old man, on the
other hand, only wanted a little personal s)mipathy as a Mohammedan
from Mohammedans. He was too humble-minded to expect much no-
tice from Abdul Hamid, and had nothing of any importance to say to
him. Thus each misunderstood the other. *Do the Mohammedan
Princes in India,' the Sheykh asked, * communicate with each other as
such, and do they communicate with the Sultan at Constantinople?'
To which the other replied that the Malay princes knew each other, but
not the others. They had never had the smallest communication with
Constantinople, and the Ottomans looked on them as Kaffirs. A Turk-
ish man-of-war had once come and stayed some time at Singapore on
her way to Japan, and it was not till just before she sailed that they
discovered that Johore was Mohammedan. Then everybody had been
delighted. That was the only communication that had ever taken
place with the Turks. They saw many Arabs of the Hedjaz at Singa-
pore who came to trade, but they were ignorant men, though some were
rich. He would like to go to Constantinople, but he would not put the
Sultan to the trouble of receiving him. He was only a small sovereign,
and had nothing of importance to say. As to missionaries, he would
be delighted if the Sheykh would send them a professor to teach them
their religion. They were all Shafais at Johore. They said their
prayers in Arabic, but did not know the meaning of the words; the
Koran was not translated into Malay except some parts of it. He was
having a translation made, they were all very ignorant. The young
Sheykh el Bekri hardly knew, I think, what to make of it all. The
good Sultan of Johore was more successful with other Egyptians whom
I took him to. At Abdul Salaam's the Pasha was on all fours to His
Highness, and me for bringing him. He described to them his patri-
archal way of governing his country vdth a walking stick — * like the
first Caliphs ' Abdul Salaam remarked — and how he liked, when he
was at home with his wife and his mother, to sit on the floor and eat
with his fingers. He wanted to find somebody doing that, but at Cairo
there were European chairs and sofas everywhere. We have promised
to show him that, too, and he is to go on to Mohammed Abdu.
" Later I went alone with Mohammed to call on Mukhtar Pasha, and
had a long talk with him on the political situation, the upshot of which
was that he promised no tinSt should be lost in pushii^ things on. He
Digitized by
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1893] Mukhtar Pasha Ghesi 97
would write at once to the Sultan, suggesting that he should take action
in the direction of neutralizing Egypt, and he would urge Riaz to con-
voke the General Assembly here after Ramadan. It shows how Uttle
these people know of their own affairs, and how entirely Dufferin's
Charter has remained a dead letter, that when I spoke to Mukhtar of
the Assembly, he stoutly denied that there existed such an institution.
* It would be,* he said, ' a most precious instrument in our hands, but I
have never heard of it.' I exhorted him to consult his papers. He also
assured me that as long as the Khedive was dans la bonne vote, he
could count on the Sultan's support. Also about Riaz that he was sure
he would work straight now with the Khedive. Riaz was much
changed in the last two years. He would jog him on if he was slow,
as he quite saw the necessity for action. Every year the Occupation
lasted rooted it more firmly. Lastly, he promised to see the Sultan of
Johore, who I hope will not commit any inconvenance when they meet
It is announced in the papers that Cromer's new yearly Report is pub-
lished, and that the * Daily News ' in London supports it, and declares
it must be several years before Egypt can be left to manage its own
Government.
" 5th April, — Randolph writes me an interesting letter about Egypt.
He says that he is still in favour of evacuation, but at the present time
cannot express his opinion publicly with advantage. He wishes, me,
however, to tell the Khedive to keep on good terms with Cromer as his
best chance.
" 12th April. — Lunched with Tigrane (the Armenian Under Sec-
retary for Foreign Affairs). He is, I think, sound in his Nationalism,
though an Armenian. We talked about my article in the ' Nineteenth
Century,' with nearly all of which he agreed, objecting only that it
might do harm to the Khedive that I should have stated him to have
denied the promise to follow English advice. He said he had been
himself the intermediary in arranging the affair between the Khedive
and Lord Cromer, that he had drawn up in writing with Lord Cromer
the form of words the Khedive was to use, namely, ' Jc suiverai volon-
tiers les conseils/ etc.; that the Khedive had read the Memorandum
and had learnt it by heart, and had promised to use the exact words.
He therefore presumed that the Khedive had done so, and that the
promise was in fact made. I said there could be no mistake that the
Khedive now denied it, and we both agreed that it was a point of the
utmost importance. He said that the Legislative Council would be
convened soon after Bairam, when they would introduce a programme
of educational and other reforms. He would see Mohammed Abdu
as to a reform of the Azhar if I would send him to him. As to the
General Assembly the country was not yet ready for it. It would have
to be written about first in the press. He had himself always been in
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98 By Athens to Constantinople [1893
that without constant action there was no chance of success. ' Yes/ he
said, ' we drift down the stream like a log to the sea/ On the whole
I am pleased with Tigrane.
" i^th April, — Lady H. writes that she has seen Gorst who seemed
immensely struck with my article, 'Lord Cromer and the Khedive,'
never apparently before having realized what a good case can be made
out for the other side.
*' 15th April, — Called again on Mukhtar Pasha, who talked with
considerable unreserve. Speaking of the necessity there would be of
England's holding Eg3rpt in force, if she were at war with any Great
Power, I had remarked we should require 20,000 men — ' 50,000,' he
exclaimed, ' only to deal with the internal disturbance, and when I come
with an army from out there from Damascus you will see how many
more you will want.' "
This is the account given by my diary of Abbas' first pitched battle
with Cromer, which the latter always claimed as a notable victory,
though in reality it was hardly that in any moral sense, Cromer having
got his way only by the violent physical measure of calling for British
reinforcements and by the unreadiness of the French Government to
make it a casus belli. Relying on this he succeeded in intimidating the
young Khedive to the extent of obtaining from him a compromise in
regard to his right of appointing Ministers which he was able to repre-
sent in his reports as dictated by himself, but it left him with the
Khedive for a persistent enemy, who though many times forced to
submit was never reconciled, and who in the end defeated his old
enemy, and drove him out of Egypt. I have recorded it here at some
length, for it marks the beginning of an obstinate determination on the
part of our Foreign Office under the Liberal, no less than under the
Conservative administrations in Downing Street, to cling to Egypt right
or wrong, wisely or foolishly, to its own hurt twenty years later.
On the iSth April we left Sheykh Obeyd for Athens and Constan-
tinople. At Athens I found my friend Egerton newly appointed Min-
ister, and we lunched at the Legation with him and Arthur Ellis, who
was there in attendance on the Princess of Wales on a yachting cruise,
and they both talked with a certain sympathy of my Egyptian views,
Egerton being still for evacuation as when we had talked of it to-
gether in Paris; but we made no stay at Athens more than the few
hours allowed by our steamer, and on 23rd April we landed at Galata,
and took up our quarters at Myssiris Hotel, where all is unchanged
since I was first there thirty-three years before, and where we stayed
for a fortnight, an interesting visit, though I failed after all in the
chief object of it, that of getting speech of the Sultan.
Our first visitor on arrival was my old ally Ibrahim Moelhi, Moham-
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med's father, now a Pasha by favour of the Sultan, and in high favour
at the Imperial court, who put me in the way of seeing various digni-
taries, including Munir Pasha, the Sultan's chief intermediary between
Yildiz Palace and strangers of distinction, who promised me an early
audience of His Majesty, but I soon found there were obstacles in the
way of an actual private audience of the kind usual at that time among
the Court officials. Mukhtar Pasha, from whom I had brought a letter
of introduction to Munir, had described me in it as " a rich Englishman
who had for many years defended the cause of the Arabs against the
English Government." The word " rich " was an unfortunate one as
suggesting ideas of bakshish to the official mind, and I soon discovered
that the doors of Yildiz would need more than one golden key to open
for me, a form of blackmail I was not prepared to submit to, for I
have made it a rule in my dealings with Orientals neither to give, nor
to receive, presents. Neither was I disposed to waste more time than
a few days waiting for this and that arrangement to mature. Never-
theless I had opportunities given me of seeing a good deal of the
inside machinery of that singular abode, the Sultan's residence and
its surroundings. I might of course have obtained a formal audience
in the orthodox way by getting the British Ambassador to present me,
but that would not have served my purpose as the conversation of
strangers under such circumstances of introduction was never more with
Abdul Hamid than a polite interchange of compliments.
Our Ambassador at the time was Sir Clare Ford, on whom we all
called, and who received me very cordially as a former member of the
Diplomatic service, and who had for a while worked there in Bulwer's
time as an attache, but we did not talk politics except with NelidofF, the
Russian Ambassador, who was announced while we were there, and
who had at one time been my intimate friend when he and I were
attaches together at Athens. Nelidoff always remembered our days
there with pleasure when we met, and so it was on this occasion. We
talked of old times at Athens when he and I were still almost boys,
he three or four years older than me, and of the paper chases we had
ridden together in the olive woods with DufFerin, he, too, still a young
man, travelling with his mother in the East, and who had spent the
winter with us there. I found him much intrigued about the Sultan
of Johore, who to his immense surprise foimd himself an object of
vast curiosity at Constantinople, and who, thanks to Sheykh el Bekri's
introduction, had been received with all ceremonious honour by Abdul
Hamid, though the Court had refused from the first to acknowledge him
as having any claim to calling himself a Sultan. Nevertheless he was
credited by everyone with a very high position as a Mohammedan
Prince in the Malay States. Nelidoff told the story of what the Sultan's
chamberlain had said of him when Nelidoff had asked who and what
Digitized by
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icx) Sultan of Johore in Honour [1893
he was. " Je ne connais pas de Sultan de Johore, mais il y a un prince
de ce nom qui a demande audience de sa Majeste le Sultan." Nelidoff
was curious to know how many subjects Johore contained, and when I
told him '' only half a million *' was greatly disappointed. He had been
reckoning on him, I think, as a possible ally for Russia on the borders of
India.
Going on the same afternoon (25th April) to a hotel where he was
staying " I found the Johore suite in the seventh heaven of delight over
their reception last night by the Sultan. Two state carriages had been
sent for them with an escort of cavalry — this had been denied them
in London at the Queen's Jubilee. They had been entertained at a
state banquet, and Sultan Abdul Hamid had embraced his brother
monarch and h^d bestowed on him the First Class of the Order of
Osmanieh in diamonds, and on the suite correspondingly high decora-
tions. I did not see the old gentleman himself, he being with the
dentist. Mohammed Moelhi alone was not decorated, though as a
matter of fact it was entirely owing to him that Johore had been re-
ceived at all. The Sultan had refused at first, saying he was only an
Indian Rajah, but Moelhi managed to persuade the palace people
through Jemal ed Din, and the brilliant reception accorded was the
result. Jemal ed Din was at the banquet, and according to Ibrahim's
account, is now in high favour at Yildiz, having succeeded with Abdul
Hamid by his plainspoken audacity. The Sultan has offered him all
kinds of grades and decorations, but Jemal ed Din has wisely refused,
and the other day, on being turned back by the master of ceremonies at
one of the Bairam Court functions, Jemal ed Din pushed his way
through notwithstanding, and so attracted the Sultan's notice, who sent
for him and made him stand close to him behind his chair, nearer even
than the Grand Eunuch. So Jemal ed Din is the man of whom to
solicit favours, and I am to be taken to call on him to-morrow, the
episode of the umbrella in the back room at James Street being con-
signed to oblivion. How foolish Drummond Wolff was to change his
mind at Vienna and not take the Se)r)rid with him to Constantinople in
1885, as I had arranged he should do. He would have got his Con-
vention ratified and succeeded where he failed.^
" 26th April.— With Judith to luncheon at the Embassy. The Ger-
man Ambassador was there, with a Swedish Count and Countess and
Carnegie, a cousin of the Ambassador, of a branch of the Southesk
family settled in Prussia, also Nicholson, our Secretary of Embassy,
next to whom I sat, I found both Nicholson and Ford professing
opinions favourable to the evacuation of Egypt; indeed. Ford intro-
1 For Seyyid Jemal ed Din Afghani's earlier career and his visit to me in Lon-
don see my volume, " Gordon at Khartoum." See also Professor Browne's ac-
count of the Seyyid in bis book on Persia.
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1893I J^f»^ ^d Din at Yildis loi
duced me to the German Ambassador as * the Englishman most strongly
opposed to our Occupation of Eg3rpt/ Nicholson married a sister of
Lady Dufferin, and was in Egypt at the time of Dufferin's special mis-
sion of 1882-3, He gave me a less rosy-coloured picture of Turkish
Finance than Vincent, who is negotiating a new loan, and so makes the
best of things here.
" At three on with Judith to Nishantash, in the Musafir Khaneh, an
official lodging house for distinguished visitors attached to Yildiz, where
Jemal ed Din has rooms. The old Afghan received us with open
arms and embraced me on both cheeks in a room filled with reverend
Turks, and made Judith sit in the armchair of state, and gave us tea
and coffee and entertained us for an hour and a half. Anne had writ-
ten him a note of excuse in Arabic, which was read out two or three
times with great admiration at its style and correctness. Then we had
a long talk on politics, partly in Arabic, partly in French, which Jemal
ed Din talks pretty fluently. Ibrahim Moelhi was there, but the others
did not understand us (very few Turks know Arabic). Jemal ed Din
asked my opinion of the various personages in Egypt, the Khedive,
Riaz, Mukhtar, Tigrane and I also explained to him the situation in
England. He was there some months last year, and had got rather
incorrect ideas — for one thing, that the evacuation of Egypt was only
prevented by the Khedive's coup d'etat. He did not understand that
the English Liberal party had long before surrendered to Rosebery.
About the state of things here we did not talk except that the Sultan
would certainly support Abbas as long as he opposed us in Egypt, and
that no claim would be put forward by Abdul Hamid of interfering
with the Administration there. Altogether a satisfactory visit. There
seems a good chance now of my getting my audience at Yildiz, but I
told Jemal ed Din that I cannot wait longer than Monday.
''27th April.— To the bazaars with Judith and the Walter Blunts
(General Walter Blunt Pasha, an A.D.C. of the Sultan, who had called
two or three days ago with his wife claiming relationship, though I
hardly know on what ground). He talked of his family as connected
with Flaw Hatch, in Sussex, a fine-looking old man in a very smart
uniform. He has been in the Turkish service since 1878. On our re-
turn we found Jemal ed Din and Ibrahim Moelhi calling on Anne, who
told us wonderful tales of the system of Palace management. It is
arranged that I am to be taken by the superintendent of the Musafir
Khaneh to see Munir Pasha to-morrow during the Selamlik. I am not
to ask for an audience, but only to deliver my letter from Mukhtar
Pasha. They seem to think, however, that it will require a week or
more to prepare the ground for an audience, since nothing here can be
done in a hurry. I am determined all the same to leave on Monday,
for if I am to do any good I must be back in England before Whitsun-
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102 The Sultan's Selatnlik [1893
tide. The one practical question I want to ask the Sultan is whether,
if the English Government were willing to open negotiations on the
lines of the Wolff Convention, he also would be willing, but Jemal ed
Din thinks it would be impossible at a first audience to go so far as
that.
" 2Sth April.— To the Selamlik with Judith and the Walter Blunts
(Anne being still laid up), a really splendid spectacle. It was held in
front of the new mosque at Yildiz, and everything had been done to
make it impressive, as there were ninety officers of the French fleet
present, brought especially by the Sultan's yachts from the Dardanelles.
Sarah Bernhardt, too, was there, to whom the display must have had
a special spectacular meaning. What interested me most was the large
number of Mohammedan Sheykhs and dignitaries from distant prov-
inces of the empire, who followed the prayer outside the mosque and
took part in the procession. This has been the triumph of Abdul
Hamid's reign. In one of the tribunes were a couple of old Druse
Sheykhs in splendid attire, with whom I exchanged a few words, and
one of them recognized me, having been at Salkhat when Anne and I
passed through it on our way to Nejd in 1878. They were then, and as
late as 1881, at war with the Sultan, now they are his guests, clothed in
robes of honour.
" When it was over I went with General Blunt to call on Emin Pasha,
the Chamberlain, and got from him permission to visit the Imperial
Arab stud at the Sweet Waters ; the General would have gone with me
also to Munir Pasha, but I explained that perhaps Munir would sooner
see me alone; so presently the superintendent came for me and took
me to Munir. There was with him an officious little man whom I
afterwards found to be Guarracino, the * Times ' correspondent ; but
Munir sent him away. He then read my letter from Mukhtar and
became cordial. We talked a little about the affairs of Egypt, and a
little about my travels, and he said he would inform the Sultan of my
arrival.
" In the Diplomatic Box which we occupied at the Selamlik, I found
our old friend Sabunji,^ now in fine feather, having a permanent post
as translator to the Sultan. He lives at Prinkipo and comes in twice
a week to Yildiz. He told me he had had my article * Lord Cromer and
the Khedive ' given him to translate, and that the Sultan certainly had
read it. He advised me to ask for an audience, but I told him I had no
time. General Blunt whispered me that he was * a palace spy,' which
of course he is, and therein lies his value ; he may be of great use to
us here. The day was lovely, the view splendid, and I enjoyed the
pageant as I seldom do things of the sort.
" In the evening we drove to the Sweet Waters and were shown the
» See " Secret History."
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1893] The Sultan's Arab Stud 103
Sultan's mares. There were, I believe, about 150 of them, all * mares
from the Arabs,* but the greater part of them of very small account.
Among the herd, however, one was able to pick out about a dozen really
good ones, and two or three of the first class. But there was no mare
there at all equal to All Pasha Sherif's best, or the best of our own.
The best I found had come from Ibn Rashid who, two years ago, sent
thirty. But the Egyptian who manages the establishment tells me that
they will insist upon tall horses, and I fancy the Bedouins who send
the Sultan mares get the big ones on purpose for him, and keep the
little ones, which are the best. There was a great hulking mare which
Sotamm Ibn Shaalan had brought with him, one I feel sure was never
foaled among the Roala. Of horses they showed us seven, the best
being without comparison a Seglawi of Ali Pasha Sherif's, an exact
match to our Shahwan. This was a really beautiful and perfect horse,
but of diminutive size compared with the others, and so less esteemed
here, though the Egyptian knew his worth. Next to him was an im-
mensely showy chestnut from Ferhan Jerba, a beautifully topped horse
of great quality, but a little overgrown, and, so the manager told me,
less good at the stud than the other. Beyond these two there was not
one I would have cared to own, two or three of them being quite unfit
to breed from. The management of the stud is, I fancy, very defective,
as there were certainly four mares out of five barren. There is, how-
ever, enough material to make a good stud out of. I should pick out
twenty of the best and and sell the others. There were a good many
black mares among them, sent as rarities, but I doubt if black is ever a
good Arab colour. One of these came from Ibn Rashid and was the
best ; Sarah Bernhardt was also in the paddock looking on.
" Munir is rather a fine-looking man, with a vigorous, intelligent face,
and modern manner — not at all one of the old-fashioned, sleepy Pashas
— and in all he says he goes straight to the point. He impressed me
favourably.
" 29//1 April. — Admiral Woods Pasha called on me and talked prin-
cipally about the Armenian question. He says it has been grossly ex-
aggerated in the London press ; that he has seen the text of Newberry,
the American Consul's Report, which is entirely favourable to the
Sultan's Government, that the ' Times ' refused to publish it, that Sir
Qare Ford had sent it home, but that the Foreign Office ignores it.
He has written to the ' Daily Telegraph ' a rather weak letter headed,
' Justice to Turkey and the Turks.' But I told him justice was quite out
of date now in England, and that he would get a better chance of a
hearing if he did not speak of it. To be listened to one must threaten,
not plead for mercy.
"To luncheon with the Sultan of Johore and his suite, including
Mohammed Moelhi and Ahmed Pasha Ali, A.D.C. to Sultan Abdul
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I04 The Sultan's Stud at Yildie [1893
Hamid, who has been attached to Johore for the period of his stay.
This Ahmed is the same who was sent to us by the Sultan nine years
ago to show us over the palaces and treasury, a good-natured, courtly
personage, said to be the most be-decorated of any in Turkey. Our
conversation at table was a regular Tower of Babel, for though we
were only ten people, we were talking five different languages, English,
French, Turkish, Arabic, and Malay.
" In the afternoon we went with the Walter Blunts to see the Sultan's
stables at Yildiz — first, however, to call on the director of it, Izzet
Pasha, the most European Oriental I have ever met. We found him in
trouble, his son having attempted to commit suicide the day before
through a love affair. He talked of this quite as a European might.
He was sitting in his house near Yildiz, in a rough kind of smoking suit,
his hair en brosse, and no fez — rather a picturesque looking man, who
might have been a French or Italian artist. One certainly would never
have guessed him an Oriental. He talked a good deal of heresy about
horse-breeding, declared that nine out of ten Arabs had unsound hocks
(an absurdity), and they were all unsound one way or the other. He
says there is hardly a horse or mare sent by the Bedouins to the Sultan
which would pass a veterinary examination. This may perhaps be true,
as I daresay they pass on their unsound ones when they are making
presents, to say nothing of the horses they send getting changed on
their road to Constantinople.
"At the stables, which are inside Yildiz Park wall, we found a
splendid collection of stallions arranged in stalls according to their
colours, gray, black, or bay — very few chestnuts. Among these the
most remarkable were, I think, half-a-dozen brought by Nasr el Ashgar,
Sheykh of the Montefik, and several very fine ones from Mohammed
Ibn Rashid, and others presented singly by Walys of Bagdad. There
were some enormously powerful horses among the bays, and one very
fine black horse from Ibn Rashid. But there was unfortunately no
intelligent person to explain, nor anybody who knew Arabic, except a
black slave. In the first stable there were about sixty horses, nearly all
of high quality, but we could not have more than two or three led out,
so it was impossible really to judge them. Beyond these were a couple
of hundred more, inferior ones, in another stable, and yet a third and
fourth stable with European animals. A very old "white Arab horse
was shown us as the Sultan's favourite for riding, but they say he
seldom gets on horseback. Altogether the grandest Arab collection I
have seen, and far superior in quality to the mares we saw yesterday.
" Dined at Ahmed Ali's in Stamboul with Johore and his suite ; a
dull dinner in the modern Turkish style, with music during it — which
I hate. Our host showed us with pride some astonishing daubs he had
perpetrated at Paris twenty years ago, and some of which he had even
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1893I Sabunji, the Sultan's Secretary 105
exhibited. He had also painted his dining-room walls not badly with
representations of orange and lemon trees in tubs.
" On my return I found that Munir had called, but I shall not put oflf
my departure unless I have an audience fixed for a special day and
hour. Mohammed is to find this out definitely and bring me word to-
morrow.
" i^ May. — A dull morning, with a Black Sea fog and cold. Hear-
ing nothing from the Palace, we have taken our places by to-night's
Orient express. Called on Ford to say good-bye, also on Woods
Pasha. Yesterday I saw Jemal ed Din at Nishantash. He was urgent
I should stay on to see the Sultan, and said he would go at once to the
Chief Chamberlain to get a definite answer. But no answer has come.
I called also on Abdullah Pasha Nejdi (Ibn Thennayan Ibn Saoud) at
his house in Yildiz. He lamented being kept a prisoner here and
longed to be back in Nejd. But the Sultan is kind to him. I went with
Serrur the Soudani.
" To-day Sabunji called. He came here two years ago with some
Englishmen to get a railway concession, which came to nothing, but he
stayed on till the Sultan, hearing of him through Munif Pasha, sent
for him and made him translator. He now has to read and digest all
the newspapers of England, France, and Italy, and to write prScis of
their contents in Turkish for the Sultan. He sees the Sultan from
time to time and sometimes talks to him about European politics or his-
tory or archaeology, of which Abdul Hamid is fond. He gets £40 a
month and a house at Prinkipo, and so is in clover. He says the Sultan
in afraid to employ good men in high positions for fear they should
become too popular. Thus Said Pasha was dismissed a year and a
half ago because he had become popular with the army by paying the
soldiers regularly. Lately, Vincent went to the Sultan with proofs
of the roguery of the Minister of Marine. The Sultan gave him in
return another paper wherein the same and many more robberies were
recorded. He had long known all about it.
" At two Ibrahim Moelhy came to beseech me to stay on a few days
till next Thursday, only another twenty-four hours, but I was ob-
durate. * I am not a fakir/ I said, * to sit at the Palace door waiting.
I am not the Sultan's servant, nor will I dance attendance on any king
in the world. If the Sultan wants to see me he must send and say
so and I will come, but to-night I go home.' So he went back to
Nishantash.
"At five came the Sultan of Johore with Mohammed Moelhi, who
has just received the second class of the Mejidieh from Abdul Hamid.
So they are all happy. At six Ibrahim and Mohammed returned to see
us to the train. AH now is satisfactorily settled. We are to go as
arranged to England, but Jemal ed Din is so to manage matters that the
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io6 The Armenian Movement [1893
Sultan will send for me some time during the summer, and he will
obtain for Anne the Chefket Order in diamonds as a sign of extreme
favour. In the meantime I am to write to Jemal ed Din letters which
he can show to the Sultan on political affairs in England. Thus I shall
be his unaccredited Ambassador. The two matters they want prin-
cipally to be informed about are Armenia and Egypt. And so, much
pleased with all that has happened during our week's stay at Constan-
tinople, we are oflF and away."
Thus ended the eventful spring of 1893 and my part in what hap-
pened during it at Cairo. On our way back from Constantinople I
note:
" 2nd May. — In the train all day crossing the great plain of Eastern
Roumelia, the Balkans to the north and the Rhodope range to the south,
a splendid plain full of storks and large birds of prey, with a few
rollers — frogs croaking gaily, bright sunshine. This part of Bulgaria
seems very prosperous — the peasants still in their national costume,
the villages still with their minarets, though most of the Mohammedan
population is gone.
" Mr. Thompson, the U.S. Minister at Constantinople, is in the train.
Ford had given me a note of introduction to him. He has told me
much about Armenia, having just sent in a report on the subject to his
Government. He says that it is proved the Armenians intended a
revolt on the 5th January, but were betrayed by one of their own people.
The placards inciting the people to rise were printed in England— ^
no Turks were concerned in it. Also he tells me the whole resident
Armenian census is under three-quarters of a million as against five
millions of Mohammedans. The only province where the Christians
outnumber the Moslems is Kaisariyeh, the smallest of the villayets —
there they may be three to one. There was some reason for their dis-
content in the way of injustice, especially through the tyranny of a
certain ex-brigand, Kurshid Pasha, chief of the police, but the measures
taken by the Government were not very severe. All the prisoners have
now been released except 200, and these he had been promised should
not be severely punished though reserved for trial. He has been acting
in concert with Ford in the matter. He says emphatically that there is
not the material in Armenia to make a nation, though the Christian
Armenians desire it. Their brethren under Russia would revolt too if
they dared. The Catholic Armenians are with the rest in desiring in-
dependence. The whole movement has been got up in England and
with English help.
" yd May, — Thompson tells me there may be trouble with Russia at
Constantinople soon, as the young King of Servia wants to go there
and do homage, while the Russian Emperor is opposed to it. The Rus-
sians supported the Regency at Belgrade and are angry with the King.
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1S93] Back across Europe to England 107
He talked also of American politics and the desire in Canada for an-
pexation to the U.S., the U.S. being unwilling on account of the large
half-Indian, half-French population, one million, and 160,000 natural-
ized Chinese. He says, however, it must come about, through reasons
of interest for the Canadians.
" Passed to-day through Hungary — many well bred horses. The
gray breed of cattle extends from Constantinople to Pesth. It seems
the same as the Roman breed, but with variation. In Turkey the shape
is nearer to the Highland Scotch breed.
" 4th May. — Passing through Germany we got English papers with
an account of the debate in Parliament on Dilke's Egyptian motion.
The French papers express disappointment. To me it seems most
reassuring. Gladstone clearly and emphatically repudiates indefinite
occupation — talks of convening a European Conference as soon as the
condition of things in Eg3rpt returns to the normal. This must put a
stop to Cromer's annexation policy."
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CHAPTER VI
Cromer's heavy hand
On my return to England after this eventful winter I found myself,
a rare thing in my public life, almost popular. I was considered to
have got the better of Cromer in our Egyptian battle, and that Cromer
had blundered badly in his diplomacy. Labouchere, whom I called on
first, promised help about getting up an Egyptian Committee, and that
he would consult Dilke about it. " As to Gladstone," he told me, " the
question of evacuating Egypt is one merely of his parliamentary
majority. 'Can you show me a majority?' the old man says, when
questioned about it ; he cares nothing any longer for any political ques-
tion, even Ireland, only to stay in power. His answer to Dilke about
Egypt was a mere juggling with words and meant nothing."
I write the same day. May 9, "I found Geoi^ Wyndham, vrith
Henley, the hospital poet ( a bitter talker, but a sayer of good things),
much pleased with his own parliamentary success, now he is in opposi-
tion and free to talk as he pleases. He expressed only a modified dis-
approval of my doings in Egjrpt. I gather from him that even the
Conservatives think Baring has made a mess of things."
" ii/A May, — To Downing Street, where Harcourt received me with
a slight show of severity at first. ' I hear,' he said, * you have been
raising up no end of trouble in Egypt. Cromer says you have been
combining against him with Mukhtar Pasha and the Sultan, and the
Khedive, to bring back Arabi, and that you are the instigator of all that
happened four months ago.' I said, * I was an accomplice after the
fact, not its instigator,' and gave him in brief what had happened.
' Well,' he said, laughing, ' I suppose we shall have to put in force the
old statute, Ne exeaJ^ regno, to keep you from mischief.' While we
were talking, Eddy Hamilton came in, but this did not interrupt the
conversation. *The worst of it is,' said Sir William, 'that it puts
your friends into a difficult position. Mr. Gladstone, Morley, and I,
are strongly for evacuation, but while there is trouble in Egypt this is
impossible.' I asked him, * Can you really tell me that you would have
negotiated for an exacuation if nothing of this had happened ? Would
you not have argued that while things are going on so well, and we
were doing so much good in Egypt, it would be better to let well alone? '
' We should certainly have begun negotiations,' he said. He then asked
Z08
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1893] SaKsbury Angry with Cramer X09
about the influence of the French in Egypt, and said that if the French
were willing to negotiate on the basis of the Drummond Wolff G>nven-
tion there would be no difficulty, but he had lately asked Waddington
(the French Ambassador), and Waddington had answered that the
French Government could hardly approve now what it had so strenu-
ously opposed six years ago. Waddington had also maintained that
France had been given definite rights in Egypt by England at the
Congress of Berlin. Sir WiUiam wanted to know about this, and I told
him of the terms made between Salisbury and Waddington for the
seizure of Tunis, equal rights in Egypt and privileges in Syria. I told
him, too, of my conversation with d'Estoumelles whom I had met as I
crossed over to England on the 5th, and had been introduced to by
Alfred Lyall who happened to be on board. I had discussed the whole
Egyptian question with him till half way across the Channel, when the
sea stopped us, and had found him very sympathetic with my views.
* Well,' said Harcourt, when you write to your friends in Egypt tell
them to keep quiet, and we will in a very short time begin negotiations.
The difficulty is in the country and in the House of Commons, where
we should not have a majority in favour of evacuation, and also with
the French Government.' I repeated to him my talk with d'Estour-
nelles, and that I was sure the French Government would agree easily
enough after the General Elections. ' Do you authorize me,' I asked,
'to say to my friends at Cairo that if they will work harmoniously
with Cromer, we will enter on negotiations for a withdrawal of
the troops, say in the autumn?' He said, 'Yes,' But at this Eddy
Hamilton made a grimace of dissent and he corrected himself. ' I can
authorize you to say what Mr. Gladstone said in the House of Com-
mons the other day.' We parted in all amity, he joking about the pos-
sibility of my having been seen in Downing Street at his door. * Rose-
bery,' he said, ' has doubtless got his touts on the look out for you, and
I must beg you, when you come again, to put on a false nose. I will
let you out Arough the garden gate.' Eddy will, I feel sure, repeat all
this to Rosebery, but I do not care if he does.
"Coming home to Wentworth House (where we were staying for
the season), I found Lady Lytton, and took a walk with her. She
tells me that Lord Salisbury is so ang^ with Cromer for his mis-
management of affairs at Cairo that he says he is unfit to succeed Lord
Lansdowne in India, so no wonder Cromer is angry with me. I am
quite satisfied with the way my action has been taken in the official
world, and I think Lady Lytton sees that after all I was right.
" 12th May. — Lunched with George Wyndham, and again found
Henley there, and with them a clever young man, Whibley, who writes
for him in the * National Observer.' George gave us some admirable
descriptions of battle scenes he had been present at in the Soudan, and
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no "Peer of the House of Commons" [1893
set beiore us the things he had seen and felt as one reads them in
Kipling.
" i^th May (Sunday). — Spent the morning writing to the Sheykh
el Bekri- Then to see Loulou Harcourt who is in bed at a private
hospital for some slight operation, but is able to receive friends. He
says he expects the Government to win at the General Elections next
year, as they will take other bills besides the Home Rule Bill and
appeal to the country against the Lords.
" 21st May, — Lunched with d'Estournelles. He professes the great-
est admiration for my politics, but that I suspect is because I oppose
English policy in Egjrpt.
" 1st June. — Dined at Lady Galloway's in Upper Grosvenor Street,
Philip Currie being there with others. She is by birth a Cecil,
half sister to Lord Salisbury, an altogether noble soul."
This marks the beginning of a friendship which put me in connec-
tion with the Cecil section of the Conservative party and their ideas of
foreign policy. Lady Galloway who spent much of her time travelling,
was of considerable use to her brother in regard to what was passing
on the Continent.
" 5th June. — Gave a dinner in Mount Street to Margot and Betty
Balfour, Harry Cust and d'Estournelles ; the latter, who came in full
uniform on his way to a State Concert, was very amusing, giving us his
ideas about English women and English men.
" 12th June, — I hear from Lefevre that the despatches exchanged
between Rosebery and Cromer are 'most curious.' Cromer was for
the wildest violence against the Khedive, but he was given a douche
which has brought him to his senses. He is, however, quite out of
favour.
" i7tA June. — With Judith and Anne to a garden party at Kew,
given by George Lefevre in his official capacity (as Commissioner of
the Board of Works). The party was to meet at the pier of the
House of Commons, and go up the river in two steamers. As we did
not know precisely where the pier was we stopped outside the House
of Lords to ask a policeman.
" Dialogue :
" J. ' Can you tell me where I shall find the pier of the House of
Commons?'
" Policeman. ' What peer did you say ? '
" /. * The pier of the House of Commons.'
" Policeman, * No, sir, indeed, we have plenty of peers of the House
of Lords, but I never yet heard of a peer of the House of Commons-"
On the boat with us were old Maud Stanley, Carlisle, Maisie Stanley
and her daughter. Lord and Lady Denbigh, T. P. O'Connor and his
wife and the Mathew family, Justin McCarthy, Lord Acton and Lady
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Harcourt, a very pleasant party, and a day of tropical heat. The party
had been invited to meet the Teck family, who arrived for tea, with
the Duke of York and Princess May.
"21st June. — To a party at Lady Salisbury's, where I again met
Prince George and Princess May.
" 27th June. — Lunched with Lady Galloway, where I met Mackenzie
Wallace; then on to Grosvenor Square^ where Margot was entertain-
ing Princess Helene and a dozen more ladies to see the performance of
a Spanish dancer, Candida Lopez.
" 28th June. — To an open air play at Pope's Villa at Twickenham,
where Labouchere was our entertainer, a queer omnium gatherum,
conspicuous among the guests being Sir William Harcourt, Monty
Corry, and numerous Irish members. Most of these last I had not
seen since my retirement from Home Rule politics. They were very
cordial. ' We treated you very badly,' Healy said, * in not giving you
an Irish seat, we ought to have made an exception in your favour.'
' Indeed,' I said, ' I am very glad you did not.' Dr. Kenny and John
Redmond spoke to me in the same sense. I was especially glad to meet
Dillon, and had some talk with him about Egypt. He told me the last
two years had been the hardest and most thankless work he had ever
had to do.
"ITie play was 'The Tempest,' done with Sullivan's music, pretty
but quite inept. Certainly Shakespeare was here at his very worst.
What can be stupider than Caliban and the drunken sailors? The other
characters pompous and flat. But beautiful songs. Ariel was wonder-
fully well acted by Dora Labouchere, a child of ten.
" 30th June. — With Judith to lunch with Burne- Jones, where he had
asked her to sit to him. His wife and son, and sister-in-law, Mrs.
Kipling, were there. During the two hours' sitting he had of Judith
he was most entertaining, telling us stories of William Morris's oddities.
One of the chairs in the studio we observed was rickety. *Yes,' he
said, ' Morris has sat in them all, and he has a muscular movement in
his l3ack peculiar to himself, which makes the rungs fly out.' He and
Morris are devoted friends, and Morris comes every Sunday to spend
the morning with him, and has done so for, I think he said, thirty years.
* I have never taken a fortnight's holiday away from London,' he went
on, ' for twenty-three years. That is because I am constitutionally idle.
Millais used to say of me, when we were young men, that I was so
lazy that when I began to work, I was too lazy to stop. And so it has
always been. I have constantly wished to get away to Egypt and to
Mount Sinai and to Jerusalem, but I am deterred by the thought that I
can get to any of these places in a week. I should like it to take at
least six months, travelling slowly through France and Italy, and ar-
riving gradually, so as to be two years away. As this is impossible
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112 Trouble about Siam [1893
I stay on in North End Grove. The garden here is a constant pleasure
to me, because I say to myself, my neighbours are calculating how
much it is worth a foot for building/ And so on and so on, always
with a delightful humour and a voice of sweetest calibre. The draw-
ing meanwhile got rapidly finished, though it seemed as if he had done
nothing but talk. It was a lovely sketch in red chalk. [This drawing
was to have been given to Judith, but somehow it never reached her,
and must have been sold, we think, with the rest of his drawings after
his death. We, have been unable to trace it]. He was very compli-
mentary about Judith, and was quite affectionate to me at parting.
This put us in good spirits, and we rushed away down to Crabbet,
Judith's London season being over. She tells me she has enjoyed it
immensely.
" 1st July, — Crabbet. Annual meeting of the Crabbet Qub. We
sat down over twenty to dinner, and did not leave the table till half-
past one. The members present were :
Geoi^e Curzon. Hubert Howard.
George Leveson Gore. Godfrey Webb.
George Wyndham. Percy Wyndham.
George Peel (the 4 Georges) Loulou Harcourt.
Morpeth. Theodore Fry.
Mark Napier. Theobald Mathew.
Harry Cust. Charles Laprimaudaye,
Charles Gatty. and Laurence Currie.
" St. George Lane Fox, and two new men, Esme Howard and Eddy
Tennant.
" George Curzon was, as usual, the most brilliant, he never flags for
an instant either in speech or repartee; after him George Wyndham,
Mark Napier, and Webber. The next day, Sunday, Harry Cust won
the Tennis Cup, and the Laureateship was adjudged to Curzon.
" i6th July. — The French have been attacking Siam in a way dan-
gerous to the general peace. We were giving a Saturday to Monday
party at Crabbet, and George Curzon arrived full of the case. He
was to have adjourned the House yesterday, but Rosebery begged
him not, as Develle, the French Prime Minister, had explained that he
was isolated in his Cabinet in favour of conciliatory measures, all the
other Ministers backing up the French Admiral. George asked Rose-
bery point blank whether he could say that the English Government
would resist all attempt on the part of the French to violate the inde-
pendence of Siam west of the river Mekong, and Rosebery assured him
that they would do so. I had some talk also with Philip Currie who
is here, about it and about Egypt. He condemned Baring's policy of
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the last few years, especially as to judicial reforms, and agreed with
many of my own views on other points. He said of DuflFerin that he
had been a failure in Paris, Dufferin had left Paris in a huff at the
continued attacks made on him in the French press. George Curzon
was very amusing.
"2nd Aug. — My news from Paris is (from a source within the
Embassy) that Dufferin has been undoubtedly a failure there ; he is too
fond of paying little insincere compliments, and his wife is too un-
genial. There is a very bitter feeling in all classes now against Eng-
land, and just at this moment it is at fever heat about Siam. After a
deal of swagger Rosebery has knuckled down. It is a robbers' quarrel
over their spoils.
" 17th Aug, — Osman Bey Ghaleb was here at luncheon, a very in-
telligent man. He left Egypt in the middle of June, and stayed a month
or more at Constantinople, being there when the Khedive came to do
homage. He tells me that great preparations had been made to receive
Abbas, but at the last moment the Sultan was frightened and counter-
ordered everything, so that Abbas was received meanly by half-a-dozen
inferior officials, none above the rank of Bey. In public this attitude
was maintained throughout towards him, but privately, Osman says,
it was different, and the Sultan received the Khedive four or five times
quite alone and had loi^ talks with him. On going away Abbas de^
dared openly to his suite that his journey had been a failure, but this
he thinks was merely to throw dust in English eyes, for he said, ' Abbas
is a proud young man, and if he had really been ill received by the
Sultan he would never have returned to Cairo, he would have thrown
himself overboard first.' It is difficult to understand the Sultan's object
in all this. Osman lays it entirely on his timidity. The English Am-
bassador, he says, bullied him (poor Ford!) on the Armenian question,
and frightened him with threats of intervention, but what folly ! Even
Gladstone could hardly bombard Constantinople or seize the ports of
the Hedjaz.*
"23rd Aug. — We had a private performance this evening of my
play, ' The Bride of the Nile,' the Lytton girls acting it, and Lady Clare
Feilding and Judith." [N.B. I had written this extravaganza while
in Egypt as a relief to my feelings, and to make fun of Baring and
the British Occupation, taking as my text an incident narrated by
Abulfeda as having happened at the time of the Arab invasion by Amru,
when the relations between Egypt and the Roman Empire were not un-
like those now existing with the British Empire. The play with our
home circle at Crabbet had a considerable success.]
I spent the month of September in Scotland making a family tour of
^ This Osman Ghaleb became afterwards the principal friend and supporter of
the National Leader, Mustapha Kamel.
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114 Swinburne and the Laureateship [1893
visits ; to the Glen, Lochnaw, and Cumloden, but there is nothing in my
diary of any public interest. On our way back, I find :
" loih Oct. — At Saighton. Spencer Lyttleton came to-day from
Hawarden to luncheon and we had a great discussion about the Poet
Laureateship. He declares that Gladstone will in all probability not
make any appointment to the office. The general sense of the Govern-
ment is in favour of Swinburne, and it has been ascertained that Swin-
burne would like to be appointed, but the Queen is opposed on account
of the immorality of his early songs, and also on account of his having
written against the Russian Emperor (he had suggested his assassina-
tion many years before, and the Queen, who regarded the Laureateship
as an office in her personal household, considered that this made him
absolutely impossible as a candidate). *The one thing we are afraid
of,' Lyttleton said, *is having Lewis Morris thrust on us. William
Morris will not take it, and so no appointment will be made."
" 23rd Oct. — Once more at Crabbet. Yesterday we had a visit from
Baron de Nolde, a Russian traveller, who has just come back from
Nejd, where he has seen Ibn Rashid. He carried a letter of introduc-
tion with him from the Sultan Abdul Hamid who, he said, made use of
him as an informal envoy to bring him word of the exact state of
affairs in Arabia. Mohammed Ibn Aruk (our old travelling companion
in 1878) went with him, and they followed the same route as we did
from Damascus to Hail except that they crossed the Nefud at a point
farther to the east. At Hail Nolde found Hamoud Ibn Rashid acting
as Regent, and was forwarded on by him to the Emir Ibn Rashid by
way of Bereyda and Shaggra to his camp near Riad. The Emir enter-
tained him there for ten days, then sent him back with a present of a
mare and two deluls to Meshed Ali. Nolde says his journey cost him
£6,000, ours cost us about £200. He is a very clever man with a very
forbidding face, not unlike Burton's. He stayed the whole day with
us and showed some knowledge of Arab horses.
" 4ih Nov. — I have been much occupied during this week about the
Matabele War, which has at last come to fighting and much slaughter of
black men by white. I took counsel on the subject with the good
Evelyn, who was for two nights at Crabbet, and we agreed to make
some demonstration of our disapproval. In the meanwhile I have writ-
ten strongly to T. P. O'Connor on the subject, upbraiding him and the
other Irish members for their silence.
" 5th Nov. — To London early, and called upon Lady Harcourt, with
whom was Lord Spencer, a worthy, ponderous man, who complained of
the calls made on him at the Admiralty from all parts of the Empire.
" Lady Lytton sends me a letter she received two months ago from
Sir Henry Loch (the High Commissioner at the Cape) giving his view
of the coming Matabele difficulty. ' It began,' he said, ' by Lobengula,
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1893] The Matabele War 115
who has not abandoned his rights over the Mashonas, sending a fo-
ment to collect taxes, kill the people, and take cattle/ They did so
to some extent in Fort Victoria; then Dr. Jameson ordered a small
mounted force to charge — when two chiefs and thirty Matabeles were
killed. ' The situation/ he says, ' is somewhat complicated, for while
the Company have administrative authority over Mashonaland, they
are still, as regards political matters, under my control, and, moreover,
the country under my direct administration must be affected by what
the Company may do. Probably the Protectorate would be the first to
be attacked by Lobengula, should there be war. I have some strong
positions and a powerful police force supported, if necessary, by native
levies, but still not strong enough to carry the war into the enemy's
country and force a battle away from supports. The danger is the
Company, as soon as they are a little better prepared, may bring about
fighting, as they can't stand long armed and waiting for events with the
possible view of committing H.M.'s Government in their quarrel. So
I am obliged to watch both friend and enemy, and if fighting once
begins, the conduct of it will fall entirely upon me, while if I do any-
thing the Company can lay hold of as causing them commercial loss,
either by checking their fighting or by encouraging them to do so, that
will enable them to say to Her Majesty's Government : " If it had not
been for the action of the High Commissioner we should not have
incurred these losses, and they might in consequence endeavour to
obtain compensation for these alleged losses out of the Government." '
" This is a good example of the way in which these Colonial wars
are begun.
" gth Nov. — To Westminster with intent to see Labouchere, who is
bringing on the Matabele case in Parliament to-day, but he was out.
"Then to lunch by invitation of Loulou at 11, Downing Street.
Sir William was there looking, I thought, older and less healthy than
when I saw him last, in less good spirits, too, than is his wont, but he
told us some good stories as the meal went on, the other guests being
Mildmay and his wife, a sister of Lady Harcourt. When alone with
me afterwards in his official room he began complaining of the brutality
of the British public, which insisted upon the slaughter of the Matabeles
to procure itself markets for its goods. * It used,' he said, * to bci
slaughter for the glory of the thing, but they have given that up now,
now it is slaughter for trade.' I asked: *But why do you do it?'
' Oh,' he said, ' we are all burglars now.' I said : ' If you will allow me
to say it, you are in the position of a bishop who burgles a church.
Why do you not disapprove?' 'Bishops,' he said, 'are always the
first to lay their hands on property when they can do it. I remember
Bright telling me that he never knew a bishop express disapproval of
a war but once, and that was a war to put down the slave trade/ /. —
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ii6 Har court on Colonial Wars [^893
* You complain of public opinion, but you let the official press, " The
Daily News " and the rest, either preach up these wars or sit on silent
till it is too late/ He, — * The papers are in the hands of the financiers.'
I fancy he has done what he could to stop the raid on the Matabeles,
but that Rosebery and the commercial Jingoes in the Cabinet have been
too strong for him. I asked him whether they were going to do any-
thing in the direction of evacuating Egypt. He said : ' No, nothing at
all. The young Khedive has behaved like an ass. He insisted upon
going to Constantinople, to get the Sultan to take up his case against
us, and the French Government, too, has been absurd. We shall do
nothing.' I said, ' I do not see that these are reasons. I hold to my
opinion that we shaU get into trouble yet about Egypt.' I asked him
finally whether Cromer was going to stay on at Cairo. He said, * Yes,
for anything I know to the contrary.' Then he relapsed into his cigar
and I went into the inner room to talk with Loulou about Harry Cust's
marriage.
" lO^A Nov, — There has been a better debate upon the Matabele
case in Parliament than I expected, though the Irish were dumb and
the Government justified their Matabele slaughter. Gladstone sur-
passed himself in the use of his double tongue. He is a shameless old
hypocrite as the world has ever seen. I have determined to oppose him
what little I can at the next elections. The spectacle of Gladstone,
Morley, and the Irish members supporting this anti-human policy in
Africa is enough to make dynamiters of us all.
" Baron de Nolde came again in the evening with his cousin, Count
de Kreutz. They are projecting a new journey in Central Africa, to
start from Zanzibar and go to Khartoum. On their last journey (in
Arabia) they took with them 300 bottles of Champagne, 100 of Madeira,
and 100 of brandy, and drank them all their two selves.
" I have written to Labouchere oflFering to help him, if I can, about
South Africa.
" 15/A Nov, — Drove over to see Fred'k Locker at Rowfant, and
wish him good-bye. He and Evelyn are the only two friends left me
in Sussex. Our leave-taking was not a little pathetic for this reason.
" 16th Nov, — To London, and lunched at Hammersmith. Morris
full of the coal war, and the proposed settlement of it by Rosebery.
He said the miners had gone the wrong way to work by throwing
themselves out of employment and starving. They ought to have re-
fused to work and gone to the workhouse. This would have thrown
the whole cost of the war on the masters, ' but,' he said, ' they have
an idea of honour in the matter, which I suppose had to be reckoned
with.' All I see in it is the strengthening of Rosebery's position, and
with it the final disappearance of the ideas of 1880. Evelyn has writ-
ten to the Committee of the Irish National League at Deptford, to say
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1893]' The Government Afraid of Rhodes 117
that he can no longer support Gladstone at the elections. I have been
writing to Redmond, but doubt if I shall send my letter. Dined with
Lady Gregory."
It was, I think, about this time that I severed my connection with
the Arbitration and Peace Society, stating as my reason for doing so
that I found the ideas of the Society would be of no profit if realized
to the backward races of mankind, or to prevent wars by white men
against them, whereas a general war in Europe might possibly give them
a time of peace on the principle that when thieves fall out honest men
come by their own. " There is talk of Philip Currie going as Ambas-
sador to Constantinople."
" 24/fe Nov, — My last visit before leaving London for the winter
was to Frederic Harrison, whom I found preparing a lecture he is to
deliver to-night. He was glad, however, to see me, and I had half an
hour's talk with him. We discussed the Matabele case, on which we are
in accord, though neither of us having special knowledge we are unable
to take action, nor does he propose to do so, considering that Labouchere
has dealt with it as well as it can be dealt with. * The Government is
afraid of Rhodes,' is the whole history of the case. We then talked
about Egypt, and I told him of my two conversations with Harcourt in
May and again the other day. He told me that as late as June, Morley
had told him that he and Gladstone and Asquith and Mundella, and
Lefevre were of one mind for evacuation, and that he, Morley, had
declared that he intended to have it out with Rosebery, and that if a
contrary policy was persisted in one or other would have to leave the
Cabinet. I gave him my opinion of the gravity of the Franco-Russian
Alliance, of the ferment there was in India shown by the Anti Cow-
killing league, and of the position at Cairo.
"He asked me if I knew anything of the reasons why Sir Henry
Norman had refused the Viceroyalty of India after accepting it, and
he told me a curious story of how Norman had come to him during the
Afghan campaign, and while he was a member of the Indian Council,
and had given him the most intimate and full information of all that
was going on, and how he had come over and over again with details
and documents avowedly to help him, Harrison, in his attack on the
Indian Government. Norman's appointment to the Viceroyalty would
seem to be a late reward by Gladstone for the political service which was
no doubt largely instrumental in bringing about Disraeli's overthrow
at the elections of 1880. I have agreed .to let Harrison know how
things stand in Egypt when I get there. I shall also write an article
for the * Nineteenth Century.'
" We left in the evening for Brindisi."
My winter in Egypt of 1893-94 was made noteworthy by a new
political crisis, and a new battle between the Khedive and Lord Cromer,
Digitized by
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ii8 Happiness at'Sheykh Obeyd [1893
in which Kitchener played a first prominent part, what is known as the
'* Frontier Incident." Here again, as in the former instance, though
an accessory after the fact I was not an accomplice, my advice being
taken about it by the Khedive when it was no longer of any use to him.
The entries in my diary show how greatly the facts of the case differ
from those recorded in the Blue Books, and are therefore of interest.
" 2Sth Nov. — On board the Hydnspes. The only fellow pas-
sengers I have made acquaintance with are Lady Waterf ord and Sir
John Stokes, the latter on his way to the Suez Canal of which he is
Director, to open a new railroad from Port Said to Ismailisu With
Stokes I have had much talk about the Suez Canal, British trade and
the Mediterranean route in time of war. He tells me three-quarters
of the tonnage passing through the Canal is British, of which perhaps
half is for English ports, the rest for other ports in Europe. In time
of war with France, this could not continue. The Red Sea was quite
safe, but the whole line of the Mediterranean would be blocked, and
this would continue until the British had broken up the enemy's forces
and confined them to their ports, then convoys could be arranged and
trade resumed. He considers that it would require sixty or seventy
more men-of-war than we have at present to effect this as against the
French navy. He is for making the increase, not for abandoning the
control of the Mediterranean. He considers that the Canal will event-
ually be internationalized, though by the terms of the concession it will
revert to Egypt in 1959, but 'nobody looks so far as that ahead.'
Stokes reminded me that our first acquaintance dates from the time of
Cave's Mission in 1875, of which he was a member. He is a
stolid old fellow of the out-of-date military type, being a General in
the army.
" $th Dec. — My first twenty-four hours at Sheykh Obeyd were a
dream of light-hearted happiness, such as I do not remember since a
child ; it was a physical feeling of perfect pleasure, perfect health, and
perfect powers of enjo)rment without the least shadow of annoyance.
We arrived at Alexandria on the ist of December in time to catch the
9 o'clock train to Cairo, and then straight on home in brilliant spark-
ling weather with just a little freshness in the North wind, the -ther-
mometer at 72. Ever3rthing on the way was a pleasure, even the new
houses built at Koubbah, and our little railway station at Ezbet d
NaW, lovely and familiar in its palm grove. Inside the garden all was
paradise. No misadventure this year of any kind, but a blooming look
of extravagant growth, trees, crops, and flowers, the house so shut in
with green we can hardly any longer get a glimpse out into the desert,
hardly even from the house top. Cows prosperous, mares in foal,
every servant happy. Each year decides .me more to spend the rem-
nant of my days in the East, where old age is respected, and its repose
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respectable. Of news we have as yet heard little; poor Ahmed Bey
Sennari (a neighbour) is dead; old Eid Diab, too, gathered to his
fathers, and Prince Ibrahim, our neighbour on the other side, gone in
an apoplectic fit, or as the f ellahin round here say, * poisoned ' by his
uncle Ismail, whose daughter he recently married, but left behind at
Constantinople. * Ismail, I suppose, was angry,' I suggested. * Oh no,'
they said, ' it was on account of the inheritance, three twenty-fourths
of which will have come to her. Ismail has poisoned very many people
for their money ' — such is the talk.
** &th Dec. — Visitors. Mahmud Bey from Menoufieh, an old fox,
formerly Arabist, his object to borrow £30, which he did not get. He
tells me Riaz and Mukhtar are now working harmoniously with Cromer.
Selim Bey Faraj, another neighbour, who has let his land at £$ the
feddan, etc., etc.
" gth Dec. — Mohammed Moelhi called. He tells me the Khedive's
reception at Constantinople was as bad as could be. He is now angry
with the Sultan, and angry with Mukhtar, who persuaded him
to go there; has quarrelled with Tigrane on a personal mat-
ter; cannot get Riaz to go fairly with him. Riaz lets things
slide as when last in office, giving in to Cromer in all im-
portant matters, only from time to time making show of opposition.
Nevertheless the English don't like him, and want to get rid of him ; so,
he says, would the Khedive, too, but he has nobody but Mazlum to put
in his place. The Khedive wished the Legislative Council to oppose
the estimate for the extra regiments of Occupation this year, but Riaz
has yielded the point and nothing will be done. Thus Abbas every day
is losing prestige in the country, and the trimmers are making their
peace with Cromer.
"The journey to Constantinople was a fatal move. Some strong
influence must have been brought to bear on the Sultan, German prob-
ably, and Abdul Hamid was partly frightened, partly bought, Moham-
med thinks, by financial promises. Edgar Vincent was probably the
medium of these. The Khedive has no option now but to keep quiet,
maintaining himself as he can at the head of the National party and
waiting his opportunity. It would be rash for him to take up the strong
position he held in the spring now that he can no longer count on the
Sultan. The Sultan was always the dangerous card in his hand.
" iSth Dec. — Osman Ghaleb and Mohammed Moelhi to breakfast.
Osman had an interview with Gladstone in England this autumn or
summer. Gladstone asked him two questions: whether the English
officials in Egypt were working hard and whether the late Khedive
Tewfik was regretted. Osman's answer to the second question was
that ' Death was always regretted, but the Egyptians were consoled by
having his son Abbas.' Gladstone hoped that Abbas would become
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120 Tigrane on the Khedive [1893
friendly to England as his father had been. Gladstone did not ask
whether the Egyptians wished the Occupation to be discontinued.
" Colbeck, director of the Bank of Eg)rpt, on whom I called, 15th
December, was quite as pessimistic on the English side. He said our
position at Cairo was becoming daily more ridiculous. Cromer could
get none of his reforms carried through ; he was opposed constantly by
the Ministry; the Khedive was irreconcilable. Much as he admired
Cromer he thought a change was necessary, as Cromer was without
power. Cromer was willing to take an Embassy, and wanted Portal
named in his place, but Portal was not clever enough, etc., etc. He
had heard nothing of a split between Tigrane and the Khedive or with
Riaz.
" 17th Dec. — With Anne and Judith to call on Princesse Helene
and her brother, the Due d'Orleans, at Shepherd's. The Duke is a
fresh-faced, blond young man, good humoured, and good mannered.
He has travelled over much wild country, and I talked to him of his
experiences, especially in Somaliland, finding him sympathetic as to
the advantages of uncivilized life and a contempt of Europe. He and
his sister are on very pleasant terms together. On their return from up
the Nile in March they will come and see us at Sheykh Obeyd.
*' 22nd Dec. — To Cairo and lunched with Tigrane. I found him
very outspoken. He assured me that neither the Khedive nor anyone
else at Cairo held me responsible for the use made of the Khedive's
name in connection with my * Nineteenth Century ' article of last sum-
mer, and he hoped I would write another. As to the Khedive's visit
to Constantinople, he declared it had not been otherwise than a success,
that precisely the same ceremonial had been observed towards Abbas
as formerly towards Ismail, that the Khedive had dined several times
with the Sultan, who had been most kind to him. I asked him about
the Khedive^s proposed visit to England, but he told me nothing was
yet settled, and I strongly advised that the Khedive should not go, at
least as long as Cromer was here, for he would only be paraded as a
tame bear, and the thing be counted as a triumph for English policy.
If he insisted upon going he should at least go straight from Paris,
where he would be feted, then possibly English people would be polite
to him, but it was a risk. He denied there having been any split
between him and the Khedive ; Riaz and he were on the best of terms.
We talked very openly about the prospects of evacuation, and I told
him that in my opinion it had been mainly determined by the larger
question of peace and war with France, and the military advisability or
otherwise of having a garrison in a disaffected Egypt. Tigrane is a
clever man and a good talker, modest withal.
"26/fe Dec. — One Ibrahim Shafei came with a complaint arising
out of the Greek drink-shop established in the village of Merj. He was
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watering his land near the railway station, and had to construct a
raised channel for the water across the footpath and the Greek objected
to this, as hindering access to his shop, though the land did not belong
to him and the fellah had a right to the waterway. The Greek cut the
channel, the fellah protested, the Greek struck the fellah with a stick,
the fellah took the stick from the Greek, then the Greek ran into his
shop and got out a gun which he pointed at the fellah, and the fellah
ran away but came back ten minutes later to reconstruct his channel,
then the Greek fired at him, fired and struck him, the fellah showed
me his legs and I found twenty-two shot marks in them, he had been
three weeks in hospital and was still weak. The Greek, when arrested,
avowed the deed, but nevertheless, after four days' detention, was let
out on bail, and is back at his shop.
" Nearly every day this month I have seen foxes in the garden when
I have ridden out before sunrise. There are three which I know by
sight, and old dog-fox, a vixen, and a year-old cub. They are very
tame, and I have watched them sometimes within a few yards of me for
ten minutes at a time. It is pretty to see them play and roll each other
over. This month is the breeding season and they are barking very
constantly in the garden (it is a peculiarity of a fox's bark that
whereas nearly all other wild cries seem to be nearer than they really
are, that of the fox sounds at a distance even when close by). I have
also seen one of the large cats called by Hassan Hashem, kutt berri
(desert cat). It is exactly like a small lioness, but higher on the leg,
the ears tipped with black and the tail with three black rings, the quar-
ters rather drooping. It is very powerfully built. The Arabs eat these
cats when they can catch them and say they are very fat and good meat.
" 27th Dec. — To Cairo to see Riaz, who had asked me to come to
him. I found the old man very affectionate and pleased to see me.
He talked in just the same strain as last year about Cromer and the
ill faith of the English government and Mr. Gladstone.
" About the Khedive's visit to Constantinople, he told me most posi-
tively first that it had been decided before His Highness went, between
him and his ministers, that he should not make any political proposals
to the Sultan — he said, *I will swear this to you on the Koran.'
Secondly, that in fact His Highness had not made any, and that his
talk with the palace officials had been confined to his personal complaint
of Lord Cromer's rudeness. Lastly, that the Sultan had been more
than kind to him and had treated him more honourably than a Viceroy
of Egypt had ever been treated, so that the Khedive was perfectly sat-
isfied with all. I asked him whether the Sultan might not have been
won over to the English policy in Egjrpt, and his face put on the most
expressively incredulous smile. 'You know,' he said, *as well as I
do that even if in his heart he had such a thought he would not dare
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122 A Talk Tviih Rias Pasha [1893
express it.' He told me, too, of an attempt Cromer had made to impose
an English doctor on the Khedive's party, which they had refused.
"We talked next about the action of the Legislative Council at
Cairo which has refused to approve the expenses this year of the
English Occupation, besides making a number of other objections,
almost all to my mind very sensible ones. Riaz is clearly in sympathy
with them, but he has rather weakly followed English dictation in re-
jecting most of them. He is doing, however, perhaps as much as is
prudent in his opposition to Cromer. * At least,' he said, * we have lost
no ground this year, if we have not gained as much as we wished.'
" About the Mer j case, which I set before him, he amused me im-
mensely by sa)dng in answer to my remark that the Greek would end
by killing someone outright, * Would it not be better if they killed Ww? '
He promised me to see justice done, and I am sure it will not be for
want of his goodwill if nothing results, but Riaz is too old not to be
timid in action. He introduced his son Mahmud to me, a little round
Circassian whom he has made his under secretary of state [a piece
of nepotism which was taken hold of effectively by Cromer, as the
young man was quite incapable and was guilty of many stupidities].
He was most cordial in wanting to see me again. Riaz has a wonder-
ful charm of manner, inspiring one with aflFection as well as respect,
badly as he behaved in 1882. For this he is contrite now.
" 31st Dec, — In answer to a question by Labouchere, Gladstone has
said in Parliament that negotiations for evacuating Egypt must be
entered into, if at all, with the Sultan, not with the Khedive.
" Mohammed Abdu lunched with us on Friday. He is very well
satisfied with the way things are going here ; says that Riaz is working
well with the Khedive, highly approves the action of the Legislative
Council, but as to Constantinople, says the Sultan is mad and there is
no doing anything with him. Talking about the Azhar University
he tells me there is only one of the Sheykhs there fit to be made Sheykh
El Azhar on a Liberal footing, namely, Hassan el Naawi.
"2nd Jan, 1894. — My audience of the Khedive. He received me
with great cordiality, excusing himself for the mistake about last
week's audience, and assuring me that he was not in the smallest
degree displeased at what had happened last year, when Knowles an-
nounced my article as authorized by him. I said, 'After all it did
good ' ; and he chuckled at the recollection. I found him just as frank
and plain-spoken as last year, but more of a man. He is much sun-
burnt and looks in perfect health. He answered all my questions freely
and without hesitation.
" The first was about Constantinople. I asked him whether it was
true that he had gone there with the intention of starting an active
anti-English campaign? AbbiK. 'There b no truth in it. I was
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obliged to go, as it was my duty to the Sultan, but from first to
last we did not speak a word of politics/ I. ' Then it is not true that
Your Highness asked for Turkish troops?' Abbas, 'The whole
thing is nonsense. It was agreed beforehand that I should say nothing
of these things, and nothing at all was said/ /. ' But Your Highness
was satisfied with the general reception?' Abbas. 'Most satisfied.
The Sultan showed me all possible kindness. But the question of
evacuation was not touched on, nor, indeed, any international politics.
I authorize you to repeat this on my part.'
" I told him that I had seen Sir William Harcourt, and what he had
said to me about the Khedive's having gone to Constantinople to raise
up the Sultan against us. He begged me to contradict this, as nothing
of the sort had taken place. I then asked about his intended visit to
England. He said he was thinking of it in June. I urged him to
decide on nothing in a hurry, as I should be sorry to see him go there
without being certain of being received with all the honour due to his
position. I feared the visit might be misinterpreted and made use of
against him in the Press. He promised to think it over well before
deciding. About Riaz he said he was on the best of terms with him,
that he was quite satisfied of the sincerity of his opposition to Lord
Cromer and that all was going on capitally. He was immensely pleased
at the conduct of the Legislative Council, but told me he had had great
difficulty in keeping up their courage. They were so timid. One mem-
ber. Gait Bey Mustafa, had come one day to the Council in a great
state of mind because he had been the day before to Kitchener to ask
that his son might be received into the military school, and Kitchener
had been very rude to him, asking him whether he was not one of those
who were wanting to cut down the army estimates, and had shown him
the door. This had frightened others, and they had all come to him,
and he had made them a little speech on their duty as independent
patriots, which had given them heart again.
" He then told me the story of the Sheykh el Bekri. He and the Sheykh
had been great friends as boys, and he had had a high opinion of him,
but latterly the Sheykh had had his head turned by the desire to play
a great political part. He had gone about among the foreign consuls
repeating this thing and that. On one occasion Lord Cromer had
quoted something the Sheykh had told him which should not have been
told, and he had sent for him and asked explanations, and advised him
to keep quiet, but he would not be advised. Complaints had also been
made to him as to the Sheykh having withheld the payment of certain
sums passing through his hands, so that he had sent for the Azhar
Sheykhs and warned them to be cautious with Sheykh el Bekri, and
the Sheykhs had told Sheykh el Bekri what he had recommended. Th's
had made further mischief. Finally, on the publication in the ' Bos-
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124 The Khedive an^ Cromer [1894
phore' about the two members of the Council having been to Lord
Cromer, the Sheykh had gone to Reverseaux, French Minister Resident
at Cairo. I had insisted upon its being contradicted, or otherwise ' he
would go over to the English.' This Reverseaux had repeated to him,
the Khedive — and he had given Bekri a strong piece of his mind
about his lack of patriotism. I told the Khedive that I regretted the
disagreement, as I had had a high opinion of Sheykh el Bekri's value
both for intelligence and courage. But he said he himself was disap-
pointed in him, and things were so.
"Of Lord Cromer he spoke with the same sort of boyish fun as
last year. 'When Lord Cromer came back from England,' he said,
' he began to talk to me once more about the details of Government,
but I reminded him that last time we had talked of these things it was
I who wanted to go into details, and he who found that " it was not
my business to trouble myself about them." Since then we only talk
about the rain and the fine weather. He comes to see me, but we never
talk politics.' . He asked me whether I had been to see Cromer, and I
told him ' No,' as I did not think he had behaved well to His Highness,
and I was unwilling, being opposed to him, to frequent his house.
This pleased him very much. He came with me to the door, and on
going out I asked him whether I might publish what he had told me,
and he said * Certainly — these are the facts and my opinion, and there
*<( no reason why they should not be made known.' I am immensely
impressed with the keenness of his intelligence, and his ready power of
expressing himself, also with his frankness and directness. There was
no beating at all about the bush, nor use of those vague generalities
so common with Eastern statesmen.
" The same day I went to the Sheykh el Bekri, who gave me his
own account of what had happened, and on 9th January to Tigrane,
who told me more details of the Khedive's reception at Constantinople.
It had been most cordial, he said. He was himself in the Khedive's
suite on the occasion, as he had been many years before with Ismail, and
the ceremonial was greater this time, greater than for Mohammed Ali
or any of the Viceroys. The Sultan saw Abbas frequently alone. He
does not think they talked politics except perhaps, the first time, all
that was done by Mukhtar. I asked him if he had any doubt of the
Sultan's support if things came to a pinch. He said he had not, the
only thing that could tempt the Sultan to intervene against Abbas would
be if it were proposed to turn Egjrpt into a Vilayet of the Empire, but
this the Powers would never consent to. His apprehension was not
from that side; what he fears is that perhaps the British Government
may intervene against the Ministry and appoint men of their own choice
without reference to the Khedive. We taljced also about the Legisla-
tive Council and its discussion of the Budget, and he told me amongst
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i894l A New Coup d'Etai MS
other things that both Havas and Renter's Telegraph Agencies get
iiyOOO a year each from the Egyptian Government.
" In a letter I wrote at this time to Sir William Harcourt, I gave
him an account of how things were going in Egypt. ' The ideas of the
day/ I wrote, ^ are Liberal and modem. The action of the Legislative
Council (in discussing the Budget) is most useful, but everything that
is done here is turned to the native disadvantage by the English officials,
who are angry at having lost much of their power since last year. It
is impossible that the country could be in a more favourable state for
evacuation, but I suppose you will not do it.' And so in truth it was,
it needed a new quarrel and a new crisis at Cairo to prevent what these
considered the danger of its taking place. Lady Gr^[ory, writing to
me on the i6th of January, said : * From what I hear the Government
in England are most anxious to get out of Egypt, and might make a
volte face at any moment/ Ihis was the danger Cromer and the
English officials at Cairo foresaw. Gladstone might at any moment
take the bit between his teeth and keep his word. It will here be seen
how the crisis was engineered, and Cromer got his way."
I was absent from Cairo on a desert tour when the clash between
Cromer and the Khedive took place. That a new coup ^ Stat was in
contemplation by the former had already begun to be rumoured is
shown by an entry in my journal of January 21. '* Mohammed Abdu
and Mohammed Moelhi called. Moelhi declares that Riaz' Ministry
will not last, that Cromer and Reverseaux have come together, and
that they mean to appoint Nubar in his place. He thinks the Khedive
will consent to this. Tigrane is on bad terms with Nubar and will not
join. It will be practically a renewal of the Dual Control. I think
there is probably something in this, though I doubt the Khedive's con-
senting." Two days later, 23rd January, we started on our journey,
one of those purely desert journeys on camels in the Western Desert,
-where one is absolutely cut off from all communication with the civi-
lized world, as much so as if one were in a different planet, nor did
we return till the 4th of February. It was a pleasant and interesting
tour among the then isolated monasteries of the Natron Valley, and
in the great uninhabited wilderness beyond it. It was Judith's first
experience of a long camel ride, and we had with us Everard Fielding
who was spending the winter in Egypt, and the weather was beautiful,
and all went well, but this is not the place for these out of the world
adventures, and I reserve my description of it for another occasion.
My first informant about what had happened was my friend Osman
Bey Ghaleb who looked in the following day, and gave the exciting
news of what is known in official Egyptian history as " The Frontier
Incident."
To make this understandable it must be explained that Kitchener,
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126 The Frontier Incident [1894
who held the position of Sirdar of the E^ptian army, was already
busying himself with preparing things on the Soudanese frontier for the
advance he had in contemplation beyond Wady Haifa against the
Khalifa (who had succeeded on the Mahdi's death to his power at Om-
durman), by endeavouring to obtain the alliance of the various tribal
Sheykhs in Nubia and Upper Egypt These proceedings were veiled
in extreme military secrecy, the details being carefully withheld from
the Khedive, notwithstanding the fact that Abbas was nominally Com-
mander in Chief of his own E^ptian army. This the young man
resented, among other British encroachments on his Vice-regal power,
and it was a matter that was much discussed between him and his in-
timates, some of whom were young officers who encouraged him to
assert himself as a reply to Cromer's call a year before for British
reinforcements. Cromer on his side, as has been seen, though unwill-
ing for financial reasons to make any new move in the direction of a
Soudan campaign, kept the necessity of such a campaign in reserve as
a useful argument for deferring the evacuation among those which he
brought forward when the possibility of withdrawing our troops was
under discussion with the home Government. It will be understood
by this, how in the present instance he had a double reason for sup-
porting Kitchener in his not originally serious dispute with the Khedive,
and making it the occasion of a new trial of strength with Abbas, and
a new change of Ministers.
" Sth Feb. — Osman Ghaleb came and stopped to luncheon, and gave
me the whole history of what had happened in my absence. According
to him the Khedive, while making a tour on the Upper Nile, was deter-
mined to find out exactly the state of affairs in regard to the Soudan,
and insisted upon being shown everything and seeing everybody.
Kitchener, who was with him, and had heard of this intention, tried to
prevent it, and to keep him especially away from visiting the prisons,
where a number of political persons were detained, Sheykhs of tribes
and others connected with the Soudanese hostilities. But the Khedive
insisted, and the prisoners appealed to him, and told him their griev-
ances, and he ordered a number of them to be released. It has been
a system on the frontier to pay subsidies to certain Sheykhs of tribes
(friendlies), who are allowed to harry the others, and complaints on
this head were made to Abbas. Kitchener, who does everything up
there in the name of England, being unable to contest the Khedive's
right to pardon, ordered the pardoned prisoners to be released, but in
Queen Victoria's name. There was also some trouble about a hospi-
tal which Kitchener did not wish his Highness to sec, sa)dng there
were seventy cases of smallpox in it, but the Khedive went and found
there were but sixty patients in all, and no smallpox case.
" Again on the frontier, Abbas insisted on receiving certain Sh^khs
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who assured him he could travel in safety anywhere with them, even
to Khartoum, while Kitchener objected to his going outside the lines,
saying there was danger. But the Khedive rode out with the Sheykhs
notwithstanding, — Kitchener remaining behind. Lastly, at a review
the 2nd battalion of a black regiment officered by Englishmen got into
disorder while marching past. Kitchener said it was through the fault
of the band, but the Khedive said they had marched disgracefully. At
this Kitchener took offence, and offered to resign, but the Khedive re-
fused to accept his resignation, and the thing was explained and set-
tled, and it was agreed that nothing further should be said about it.
Kitchener, however, made use of the incident later as a pretext to get
the Khedive recalled from the frontier, and telegraphed to Cromer, who
telegraphed to Rosebery, who telegraphed to Paris and St. Petersburg
to say that he must deal separately with the case (independently of the
other Consuls General). The French and Russian Governments agreed
to this. Pressure was then put on Riaz, who telegraphed to the
Khedive to return.
"The conditions imposed by Cromer were a commendatory order
by the Khedive to the troops; the dismissal of Maher Pasha, whom
Kitchener accused of having instigated the Khedive's conduct, and as
third condition that the English officers in the Khedive's army should
have the right to be tried by court martial in England. Abbas is said
to have accepted all these conditions. If it is true that he was unsup-
ported by France or the Sultan, he was probably right to do so, but
he has reserved to himself the right of explaining the matter in his own
way, through Tigrane.
"Osman Bey is far from friendly to Abbas, being a partisan of
Prince Halim, and having a g^dge against Ismail and all his house,
because Ismail had his brother strangled at Senaar in 1878. He gave
us a tragic history of this. He says the Sultan has been bought over
to English interests, that he communicated everything that passed at
Constantinople between him and Abbas to the English Embassy, and
that he has £20,000,000 sterling invested in English securities, es-
pecially with the Ottoman Bank.
*'6th Feb. — Captain Broadwood (afterwards General Broadwood)
came. He told me the story of the Khedive's quarrel with Kitchener
as he had heard it from Colonel Settle, a good authority. According^
to this, the Khedive when receiving the officers, native and English,
after the review expressed his satisfaction with all, except the infantry,
under Colonel Lloyd's command. Kitchener was not present, and
coming back a few moments afterwards said to Lloyd, ' Go and tell the
men the Khedive is pleased with them,' taking for granted that it had
been so. * I am afraid I can't quite do that,' said Lloyd, ' for His
Highness has just expressed disapproval of my part of it.' Thereupon
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128 The French at Timbuctoo [1894
Kitchener went after the Khedive, and no one knows exactly what
took place between them as they were alone. *It is all the more
curious/ said Broadwood, 'because just before the Khedive left for
the south, he received us at Abbassieh and spoke in quite a friendly
tone/ I have no doubt Kitchener made a quarrel of it purposely to
get the Khedive back from the frontier, and that Cromer still further
exaggerated it for political reasons. The * Daily News ' has an article
anything but unfavourable to my article, though in comtoon with all the
English papers it has been full of violent words lately against the
Khedive.
" Gerald Portal is dead in England. I am sorry for this on Lady
Edmund Talbot's account, as she and her sister had reckoned on his
succeeding Cromer here, I see the newspapers make great count of
him, but he was a man of very ordinary abilities, pushed on by Cromer,
whose faithful pupil and understudy he was. I don't know that he is
any loss to us politically here.
" yth Feb. — Spent the day wading through nearly a hundred news-
papers from England, the arrears of the last fortnight. It is quite
astonishing the lies and false arguments they contain about ever3rthing
Egyptian, only another proof of the fact that the Press is in reality an
engine for the concealment of historic truth, the most complete evQr
invented. There is not a single English paper that treats the recent
incident here with even a semblance of fair dealing. Lying hypocrisy
and violence are everywhere the order of the day. The French have
pushed a military column forward and have occupied Timbuctoo! I
am curious to know the exact position here of the Eg3rptian Govern-
ment towards the French, and have written to Tigrane proposing a
visit.
" Sth Feb. — Lunched with Tigrane and discussed the ' Frontier in-
cident ' with him at length. It would seem that the Khedive did sev-
eral things while on his journey that were irregular. Maher Pasha,
who travelled with him, was formerly Governor of the Frontier Prov-
ince, and put him into communication with everybody Kitchener least
wished him to see. At Luxor he found Minshatti, the Sheykh of the
Abdabdeh, who was condemned to death five years ago, but whose
sentence had been commuted, and who was made to reside at Luxor.
Him Abbas made much of, took on board his dahabiyah with him and
released. This is the same Minshatti who appealed on one occasion
to me, and about whom I wrote to Grenfell. He was at that time
specially obnoxious to Kitchener, then head of the Intelligence depart-
ment on the Upper Nile.
" Again, it is true that His Highness insisted upon making a desert
expedition farther than Kitchener approved ; and again, that Kitchener
had had some Soudanese soldiers, five of them, shot on the plea of
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desertion without the Khedive's sanction. Tigrane, however, is not
very certain of details, and urged my seeing the Khedive.
" As to the final quarrel with Kitdiener he says it was a small affair,
and the story given me by Ghaleb Bey substantially correct. Kitchener,
after resigning and then withdravring his resignation, had assured the
Khedive that it should go no further. Cromer, however, had taken it
up beyond all measure, had insisted on Riaz, and then the Ministry,
accepting his terms without waiting to hear the Khedive's story, and
had threatened consequences which they dared not face. I asked him
what these were, but this he said he could not tdl me, but it was not
merely their own dismissal as Ministers, I fancy it was that the
Khedive's army should be put under the English Commander-in-Chief.
They had no option but to get the Khedive out of the scrape as the|y
best could. The French Agency had gone entirely against them, owing,
he said to des circonstances personelles on the part of Reverseaux.
This being so, the position is of course a very dangerous one. Tigrane
thinks that, if the English Government were to ask the French Gov-
ernment's leave to depose Abbas, the French Government would con-
sider it so distinct a diplomatic gain that it would consent.
" Tigrane told me that the idea of addressing a circular letter ex-
plaining the ' Incident ' to the Powers had been abandoned, and even
that of addressing such a letter to Cromer, though he, Tigrane, was in
favour of it. There was danger of a new publication of Blue Books.
Cromer has been compiling things against the Khedive all the last
year. I asked him if these were things affecting the Khedive's moral
character and he said : ' Oh no. But the Khedive has once or twice
made complaints against English officers which he had been unable to
substantiate, of drunkenness and the like, and it would be sought to
prove that he was mendacious and was animated by ill-will.' He
thought I might publish an explanation without committing the Khe-
dive. But I cannot do this unless I see him, nor do I think it wouki
be as good a way as officially through the Foreign Office. He assured
me there was no truth in the report of a quarrel between the Khedive
and his Ministers. ' We got him out of his scrape,' Tigrane said, ' as
we best could, and the Khedive knows it.'
"9//t Feb. — The London papers are really too monstrous. It is
evident to me that Cromer and his partisans have determined upon
Abbas' removal by fair means or foul, and that do he what he will,
nothing now vdll satisfy them. I am anxious all the same that he
should at least put his true conduct on record, and I have written to
suggest my seeing him.
- " Yesterday coming home I met young Gordon, General Gordon's
nephew, who gave me yet another account of the frontier incident.
He says that there are eight battalions of native troops on the frontier
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under Lloyd, who has local rank as Pasha, and that there is great dis-
like and jealousy between the black troops and the Egyptian troops.
The blacks, he says, would like nothing better than to have a go in at
the Egyptians, whom they hate and despise. He himself inspected the
troops on the frontier a few weeks ago as head of the Store department,
and found the Egyptian battalions, the 6th and 7th, in a very slovenly
condition. It was just these that the Khedive picked out to praise, and
not the others, of which he said they were a disgrace to the army.
Lloyd, he tells me, has been a great upholder of the Egyptian soldiers,
maintaining, contrary to all other opinion, that they are as good as the
Soudanese, ' but I fancy,' he added, ' he has changed his opinion now.'
Gordon is very severe on the Khedive, but his post, if I mistake not,
is one of those newly-made ones as to which there was an objection
raised (by the Legislative Council).
"nth Feb, — Brewster Bey called on me this afternoon, having been
sent by the Khedive to thank me for my article in the ' Nineteenth
Century,' and to talk over the situation. He is a little man of about
thirty-five or perhaps more, an Englishman, he told me, born in Devon-
shire, but who has contracted a slightly foreign accent. He came to
Egypt the same year we did, in 1876, first as a derk in the customs at
Alexandria, and then at the time of the Suakim campaign for three
years at Suakim, where he served under Kitchener, when Kitchener
was Military Governor there. He did not tell me how he happened to
get the post of private secretary to the Khedive, but he is clearly an
honest man, who, from his sympathy with native Egypt, has fallen
into disfavour with our people. ' I am on the black list,' he said, * at
the Agency, and beyond leaving cards once a year, I see nothing of any
of them.'
" He spoke in the warmest way of his young master, Abbas, and was
indignant at the treatment he had received in the affair of the frontier.
' Will you believe it,' he said, ' but to the present moment the Khedive
does not know precisely what he has been accused of saying? He has
never been informed.' I urged him very strongly to get the Khedive
to put his own story on paper, and not by word of mouth, to Lord
Cromer, who would repeat it to our Government after his own fashion.
It ought to be done officially through Tigrane and at once. I asked
him exactly what the true story was, and he told me that what the
Khedive had told him was that after the review at Wady Haifa, the
second battalion, which is an Egyptian, not a black one, under English
command, had got out of order in the manoeuvres; that when alone
with Kitchener he had expressed himself strongly about it, saying that
it was a disgrace to see good troops so badly handled ; that Kitchener
had resigned and then withdrawn his resignation, and had told the
Khedive the matter should remain a secret between them, and that
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they travelled back together amicably to Assouan ; but that there Kitch-
ener, who seems in the meantime to have telegraphed to Cairo, repre-
sented to His Highness that before leaving Upper Egypt he should
issue an order declaring his satisfaction with the frontier force; that
the Khedive had demurred to this, and on being further pressed His
Highness had said, ' You mean, then, to make it a political matter? I
consider this is a question within my limits to decide.' Whereupon
Kitchener replied, ' I am not sure what Your Highness* limits are/
What more happened Brewster does not know. But he says that,
knowing Kitchener well and knowing the Khedive, he would infinitely
sooner take the latter's word than the former's. I asked him what
sort of man Kitchener was, and he told me he was of no particular
ability, and that he was especially ignorant, for a man who had seen
so much employment here, of native character and native ideas. At
Suakim he had committed the grossest blunders in this way. Kitch-
ener's original quarrel with Maher (this was told me by Kennedy) was
about a large sum of secret service money, as to which Kitchener re-
fused — Maher being Under Secretary at the War Office — to give any
account. This was the beginning of the trouble, as far as Kitchener
was concerned.
"Brewster spoke bitterly of the French and Russian Agents, who
had turned against Abbas in this difficulty, as they had done the year
before. With regard to Constantinople, he also does not trust the
Sultan, * who will do whatever the English Government tells him.' As
for Mukhtar, he had been against Abbas all through, and was now
playing entirely into Cromer's hands. ' He has not forgotten,' he said,
' the Khedive's telegram to Constantinople at the beginning of his reign,
when he asked who was the Sultan's representative here in Egypt,
himself or Mukhtar? ' Brewster considers the situation a very danger-
ous one for Abbas — in which I agree with him. * If he goes,' he said
emphatically, * I shall not stay a day longer in Egypt.' Nevertheless,
the Khedive is full of courage, and Brewster promised to back up my
advice about the note of explanation addressed to our Government.
He thinks I can do no good by explaining matters to the English Press.
A very honest fellow is Brewster, of a kind one would wish to be
served by, but does not often meet.
*' jyth Feb, — I have written a long private letter to the Editor of the
* Daily News ' for his instruction, not for publication, explaining the
true state of affairs here.
" igth Feb, — Lady Dunmore, who was here with her daughters a
few days ago, gave us a thrilling account of her life and sufferings in
Kashmir, where they were taken, she being an invalid, to spend two
summers, by her husband, but after all it seems to have done her good,
and the girls were enthusiastic about it. She told me to-day a curious
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132 Lord Dunmore and the Czar [i894
story, which shows how things are done in Russia. When her hus-
band started from India on his journey through the Pamir country, the
Emperor of Russia — Dunmore has Russian relations — gave him a
private letter which secured him free passage through the Russian
lines. On his return the Emperor wrote to him begging that he would
come and see him at St. Petersburg and give him an account of what
he had seen, the Emperor being very anxious to have unbiassed evi-
dence of the state of things in Central Asia. To this Dunmore re-
sponded, and wrote as many as three letters expressing his willingness
to come, but never any further message, until quite lately he has learned
that none of his letters were received by the Emperor. It appears that
the men about the palace exercise an absolute supervision over all the
Imperial correspondence, and even the Princess of Wales finds diffi-
culty in communicating with her sister. Now Dunmore has asked at
the Foreign Office that his letter of explanation should be presented by
the Ambassador, or rather the Charge d' Affaires, in private audience.
The Emperor it appears has been furious at getting no answer, and
Lady Dunmore says: 'When he finds out the truth there will be
journeys to Siberia for some of those concerned.'
" 22nd Feb. — Dormer called. He gave us the alarming intelligence
that there is a scheme on foot for bringing the Cairo sewage into this
neighbourhood. It is indeed the abomination of civilization standing
in the Holy Place. We have always looked upon the desert as the one
pure, imperishable possession, but if this is to be made a stink-pot for
our nostrils we are indeed lost." This plan, which was already in an
advanced stage with coloured surveys on a large scale, entitled de-
risively " Projets d'assainissement," I was the means under Providence
of preventing. I wrote to Lord Cromer representing the economical
folly of the project which had chosen the only district in the neighbour-
hood of Cairo suitable for building a rural suburb, seeing that it was
the only one which possessed an abundance of good water in a sandy
soil, and he 3rielded to my argument, with the result of what is now the
populous suburb of Heliopolis having grown up there. Dormer, who
became afterwards Lord Dormer, was at that time employed in the
Egyptian Financial Department.
" 23rd Feb. — Lady Francis Osborne came full of serious advice to
me about my * radical politics,' and the stir my writii^s were making
among the officials here. ' Why do you take pleasure in making your
fellow men unhappy?'
" A visit from three little journalists, Sheykh Ali Yusuf , Editor of
the ' Mowayad ' (the first Nationalist newspaper at Cairo since Tel el
Kebir), Mohammed Mesaoud, and Abderrahman Ismail. A worthy
man is Ali Yusuf, with nothing of civilization about him. Just a little
Azhar student in a turban, clever and sympathetic, but without knowl-
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i894] Th0 Due d! OrlSans I33
edge of the western world. The others with a slight veneer of Europe,
but hardly deeper than their clothes." This is the first mention in my
diary of Sheykh Ali Yusuf, who played so important a part later in
Cairo's journalistic history.
" 27th Feb. — Princesse Hilene and her brother the Due d'Orleans
spent the afternoon here. They have been up the river in a dahabiyah
to Wady Haifa, and enjoyed themselves immensely. He is a good
young fellow, manly and intelligent, and extremely nice to her. He
tells me that in Somaliland he has seen as many as 500 ostriches to-
gether. They go in packs in the autumn and winter months, males and
females separately, but pair in the early spring. The buffaloes even
there are almost extinct. It was nearly dark when they left, and I rode
back with them as far as the obelisk.
" 2Sth Feb. — Heavy rain, enough to make the spouts on the roof
run, the first time they have done so since the house was finished more
than two years ago. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about
the increase of rain in Egypt since the Suez Canal was made — and of
fogs since the British occupation. It is pure rubbish. Reading old
accounts of travellers two and three hundred years ago, I see that they
generally remark that there is but little rain in Egypt, never that there
is none, and so it is now. All the change there has been is a certain
increase of morning fogs and dampness through the increased irriga-
tion of the Delta, but I am a sceptic about the increase of rain. Old
West, our Consul at Suez, told me ten years ago that in his experience
there of forty years he had remarked no change." I tested this once
later by questioning my chief Bedouin, Suliman, whose home is the
desert between Cairo and Suez, on this head. " Do you not find, Suli-
man," I said, " a great change in the climate here in your recollection? "
" Oh, yes," he answered, " there is a great one, and sadly for the worse.
When I was a boy, we had beautiful rains on the upper country with
eshub (green spring herbage) every year for our camels, now not a
single drop, all is burnt up, a sad change certainly."
** 4th March. — Gladstone has really retired from public life. He
went to Windsor yesterday, so the telegrams say, and gave in his resig-
nation, recommending Rosebery as his successor. I suppose now he is
gone there will be a general chorus of praise, but for my part I shall
not join it. He has betrayed too many good causes not to be an evil
doer in my eyes, and his one remaining cause, Ireland, he leaves in the
lurch to-day by his retirement. I am glad to see that Labouchere and
twenty more members of Parliament have protested against Rosebery's
succession.
"6th March. — It is announced in the 'Bosphore' and other local
papers that the Sultan has telegraphed his entire approval of the
Khedive's action in the late crisis, and has instructed his Ambassador in
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134 Roseber^ Prime Minister [1894
London to protest against the accounts of it published in our news-
papers. This, if true, is most important. The Sultan has also pre-
sented Abbas with a palace on the Bosphorus, a gift of more doubtful
omen.
" 7th March, — It appears that Rosebery has carried the day and is
to be Prime Minister. He is an astute Whig of the Palmerston type,
and the Radicals have got what they deserve. The policy in Egypt
can hardly long remain unchanged, and I should not be surprised to
see Rosebery entering on a scheme for the partition of the Ottoman
Empire. It cannot well, however, be carried into effect without war,
and so I hope that under Providence it may result in the partition
rather of that other Empire for the sake of which we in England have
sold our old principles of freedom and respect for International right.
The Radical jingo is the ugliest feature of our modem politics."
Though Lord Rosebery did not remain in office long enough to carry
out this plan in person, it was put in practice later by his Under Sec-
retary at the Foreign Office, and understudy. Sir Edward Grey, with
the result we have all witnessed.
" i^th March. — Young Aldridge called. He tells me he was at the
celebrated review at Haifa when the Khedive was supposed to have
insulted the officers. He was staying with these officers, and none of
them were aware of anything in the way of a crisis having occurred
till three days after it. He says the opinion of the officers of the
Egyptian army on the spot was that the Khedive had said nothing but
what he had a right to. He had praised the Camel Corps and the
artillery and the cavalry, but had criticized the infantry, which in fact
had been a bit in disorder. The remarks, whatever they were, had
been made half a mile away from the men, and the men knew nothing
about them, nor ever would have known except for the newspapers.
'What,' says Aldridge, * was the Khedive there for if not to make re-
marks ? ' This doubtless reflects the view of the English officers con-
cerned, as Aldridge is Broadwood's half-brother.
" i^th March. — Frank Lascelles is made Ambassador at St. Peters-
burg. It seems but the other day that we were attachis together at
Madrid, sharing all things in common ; he deserves his promotion, for
he has worked hard for it in many a dull, forgotten post. Another
promotion is Rendell's to the House of Lords. He also deserves it for
his great humility.
" 20th March. — Kitchener has just come back from Suakim from a
military promenade in the neighbourhood of Tokar, where the country
was found green and well watered with streams running and full of
wild creatures, ariels and gazelles. All this because for five years the
abominable animal, man, has been excluded. All the world would be
a paradise in twenty years if man could be shut out.
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1894I -K*^ Pasha Resigns 135
" 14th April. — To Cairo with Anne and Judith, and had luncheon
with Riaz Pasha and his son Mahmud. The old man was gay at
luncheon, and talked history and poetry apparently without a care on
his mind, but when the ladies were gone to pay a visit to his Harem and
we were left alone, he suddenly told me that he had just that morning,
that very morning, sent in his resignation and that of his fellow min-
isters to the Khedive. I asked him, ' And did the Khedive accept it? '
He answered, ' A peu pris! Then he told me that ever since the affair
of the frontier there had been a lack of confidence on the Khedive's
part, that he and the Ministers had not been supported, and that the
palace paper, the ' Journal Egyptien,' had entered on a campaign against
them. It did not suit his dignity, and it injured the public service to
remain under those conditions. He had given many years of loyal
service to his country, and he was an old man, and he should retire
now once and for ever. A tear stood in the poor old Minister's eye,
and I grieved with him over his fall with all sincerity. He then talked
bitterly of the change that had come over the face of the world since he
began his official life. How the English used to be trusted and believed
in as the one honest nation the whole East over. But he talked more
bitterly still of the French, and yet more of his rival, Nubar, who he
thinks is to succeed him. It is doubtless to the French that he owes his
present reverse, though Cromer will profit by it to the extent of making
a split between Abbas and the National party. Riaz said it was a little
of all their doing. He talked kindly of Rivers Wilson. Of Roscbery,
he said he had seen him twice at Cairo, once with Cromer, once alone.
When alone Rosebery had asked him whether it would not be better to
have an English Under Secretary in every department, but that, said
he, ' I told him would be putting two captains to a ship, it would go
down.' I told him Rosebery was a dangerous man in power as far as
Egypt and the East were concerned, that I should not wonder if he
solved all difficulties by a partition of the Ottoman Empire, a gloomy
view in which the old man shared. 'Poor Egypt,' he said, 'poor
Egypt 1 ' It is a strange chance that has made me, in spite of 1882,
the confidant of^his political griefs, but in truth our views on most
things are identical. He hates Western civilization almost as bit-
terly as I do myself. He sent us away with benedictions and loaded
with roses from his door.
" \^th April (Sunday), — Mohammed Abdu spent the day with us.
He says the National party is in despair at Riaz' resignation, and still
more at Nubar's return to power, for Nubar means a reign of money
makers and speculators, and the government of Egypt by Europeans
and Syrians, strangers from every land.
" 17th April. — To Koubbah. Palace (Abbas' country residence, three
miles from Sheykh Obeyd). I was taken to the garden and found
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136 Abbas Explains [1894
Abbas sitting under some trees near the stables, looking at Arab mares
which were being paraded before him. With him was the old Sou-
danese Mohammed Taher, whom the Khedive introduced to me as a
loyal Shaggia. We talked first about the horses, six of them, for which
Abbas said he was offering iSoo. But only two of them were good
ones. These were a brown mare, like our Queen of Sheba, and a little
grey with a fine shoulder, perfectly level back, and tail grandly carried.
" Presently the young Khedive began on politics. He went through
the whole story of the frontier incident and Riaz' resignation, and his
appointment of Nubar. As to the first his account was much what I
had already heard. He said that it was originally a quarrel between
Kitchener and Maher Pasha — that when Maher was appointed Under
Secretary at the War Office, Kitchener had tried to persuade him to
refuse, but Maher had persisted, though his pay was reduced thereby
from ii20 to iioo a month. When Abbas started for the frontier,
Kitchener had tried to prevent Maher going with him. However, all
went well till the famous review at Wady Haifa when he had found
fault with the second battalion, and had told the English officer that
his battalion had done very badly — this in the presence of Kitchener
and eleven officers, some English, some Egyptian. Afterwards he had
had a private talk with Kitchener, and had told him it was a shame good
Egyptian troops should be so badly handled, and Kitchener had tend-
ered his resignation. But the Khedive had begged him not to take it in
so serious a way, and the resignation was withdrawn and the thing
ended.
" After this they travelled two days together on excellent terms, till
on the third they came to Assouan. There the Khedive wanted to
telegraph to Riaz, but found the wires occupied by Kitchener. Never-
theless he sent his telegram to Riaz, felling him what had occurred and
that it was of no importance. Later, Kitchener came to him and asked
him to send two words of commendation to the officers of the frontier
garrison before leaving, as he said the officers were offended and were
tendering their resignations. The Khedive asked him whether he
wished to make a political question of it, and asserted that it was within
his prerogative to send or not to send such a message. To which Kitch-
ener replied that he was not sure whether it was so. Nevertheless the
dispute ended in Kitchener's promising to say no more about it. Riaz
had been weak in allowing his hand to be fprced. As to the change of
Ministry, Abbas said that when he had seen Lord Cromer he had con-
sulted him as to whom he should send for, and Lord Cromer had said
Nubar. Abbas had objected that he was a Christian, Lord Cromer
had advised against a Christian Prime Minister last year. Lord C.
then said there was no choice unless the Khedive would like Mustafa
Fehmi. The Khedive then proposed Fakri and Mazlum. But Lord
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Cromer said they were both insignificant. In the end Abbas had given
way about Nubar, and there was a compromise about the rest of the
Cabinet. Fakri goes to Public Instruction, Mustafa Fehmi to the
War Office, Mazlum to Finance, and Butros, who, Abbas said, had
betrayed the secrets of the late Cabinet all through to Lord C, to
Foreign Affairs. He asked me what I thought of it. I said that I
had no confidence in Nubar, but recommended him as soon as he was
tired of Nubar to have back a Nationalist Ministry, strengthening it by
adding some European he could trust for Foreign Affairs. He prom-
ised to remember my advice.
" The Khedive then talked of his camel ride to Suez, and lastly con-
sulted me about going to England this next summer. I said I would
try and find out for him what line would be taken there about his
reception, and especially by the Prince of Wales, and let him know.
He begged me to write to him. As to publishing an)rthing he would
leave that to my discretion. Then he made the old Soudani sit near
and talked about Zebeyr, who is evidently out of his favour, and so
after about an hour he got up and took me to see his camels, and then
with a few more words about my writing to him we said good-bye.
" Although extremely friendly and nice to me personally, I confess
that he impressed me less favourably this time than before. He has
clearly made a dreadful hash of things, and seems to attach more im-
portance to the getting rid of Kitchener than to the larger political
questions. I can see that he is in the hands of the intriguers that
surround him, and that he is no match for Cromer, who has won the
game against him through the Khedive's own mistakes. Not that
Nubar's appointment is much advantage to English policy, for Nubar
is in French interests, but Lord Cromer has certainly won a personal
victory. The future to me looks very black. The young man has
lost something of his frankness, and of his first sublime self-confidence,
which was his strength, and I fear he will degenerate into the shifty
intriguer his father was before him. Still he is more manly than
that, and with honest advice may yet go well. But who is to give
it him?
" iSth April.— Our Mowled of Sheykh Obeyd. A calf was killed
for the labourers in the garden, and the girls and those who have been
at work on the new house, and a lamb for the Sheykhs, with recitations
and chauntings in the evening. [This was a religious festival held
annually in our garden at the tomb of Sheykh Obeyd.] "
The Bee Birds have been wonderful this year, three or four hundred
roosting every night in the trees near the house. I cannot quite make
out what they do in the day-time, for they all disappear from the gar-
den, coming back about half an hour before sunset. Most of these
birds travel north at this time of year, but a few stay on during the
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138 Cromer Triumphant [1894
summer. There are also some of the large spotted cuckoos in the
garden just now.
"20th April. — Our last day at Sheykh Obeyd. I am grieved to
leave it this year more than any year before, and have half made up
my mind that this shall be my last visit to England. My true home is
more and more in Egypt."
We left the following day, and here I close this chapter. With it
ends the episode as far as I was personally concerned in it of the
National movement of 1892-1894. It failed through the absence of
any strong leader to take direction of it; through the youth and inex-
perience of the Khedive Abbas; through the unscrupulous determina-
tion of Lord Cromer acting in what he considered English Imperial
interests, and through the still more unscrupulous money interests
worked through Lord Rosebery from London and Paris. Lord Rose-
bery's family connection with the Rothschilds is a sufficient explanation
of this last influence. French diplomacy at Cairo seems to me to have
been very weakly managed by M. de Reverseaux, the French Consul
General there, though how much of the vacillation between encourage-
ment given to the Nationalists when they made a forward move, and
their abandonment when the advance had been made, was due to the
French Representative at Cairo or to the Ministers at the Quai d'Orsay,
I cannot determine. Be it as it may, the spring of 1894 saw the move-
ment lose its force, and brought to a complete standstill a year later by
the retirement in his turn of Nubar Pasha, and Lord Cromer's installa-
tion as absolute despot ruling Egypt through a dummy Minister,
Mustafa Pasha Fehmi, while the Khedive Abbas, cut off from all
legitimate exercise of his viceregal rights, consoled himself with the
follies of youth, money speculations, and impotent intrigue.
It was the history repeated a hundred times over of the English
manipulation of the native States of India. To me it was a mournful
spectacle, a blank period during which, though still maintaining a deep
interest in what went on, I held a position entirely of spectator, keeping
touch with the local politics of the day during my winter visit to Sheykh
Obeyd mainly through Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, whom I established
on a corner of my property in a country house within half a mile of
my own. He had an advantage for me as historian and diarist of
being personally intimate with Mustafa Fehmi who concealed nothing
from him, while Abdu concealed nothing from me. It was as an
historian only that I followed the development of the Cromerian rigime,
until in 1906 Cromer's astonishing blunders of that year once more gave
life to Egyptian Nationalism, and it found a voice in Mustafa Kamel.
My diary in the meagreness of its political entries corresponds with my
political abstention during this weary interval. Nevertheless there
Digitized by
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1894] Nationalism Quiescent 139
were moments when I said my say with our politicians on Egyptian
affairs, and in the London " Times," notably in the year of the new
invasion of the Soudan under Kitchener in 1896, of Fashoda, and of the
fatal entente with France in 1904. The entries then have a renewed
importance, the rebirth of Nationalism in 1906 having lured me once
more into the field as an active combatant for Egypt's independence.
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CHAPTER VII
A SUMMER IN ENGLAND, 1894
The first news that greeted me on my return to London from Egypt
in the Spring of 1894 was the engagement of my friend Margot Ten-
nant to Mr. Asquith, a political event, as it turned out, of the first
magnitude, though perhaps not fully appreciated as such at the moment.
I find it recorded thus :
" 1st May. — To Grosvenor Square, where I found Sir Charles Ten-
nant very important over his daughter's approaching marriage. ' It has
gone on now,* he said, * for a year and a half, at first all on Asquith's
side, but now Margot is sincerely attached to him. She has smartened
him up wonderfully, you would hardly know him.* Upon which in
walks Asquith, a little smooth-shaved middle-aged man, with a beatific
smile on his face, as of one to whom Heaven's doors have been opened.
He reminded me very cordially of our former meetings on Home Rule
platforms, and in answer to my congratulations, said, ' Indeed you have
reason to congratulate me.' Sir Charles gives his daughter £2,000 a
year and a house in Cavendish Square. They are to spend the honey-
moon in Caroline Grosvenor's house, 30, Upper Grosvenor Street, which
they have rented for the season.
*' 4th May, — George Wyndham came to see me. We discussed
Rosebery, and agreed that he was overrated as a statesman, a clever
after-dinner speaker, but nothing more. He had been pushed for-
ward by the press and the Jews as a sort of Stock Exchange candidate,
but he could not last as leader of a party. George applauded my inten-
tion of formally returning to the Conservative fold [a momentary in-
tention never carried out, for I joined no party].
" 7th May: — Lunched with Sir William Harcourt. In spite of ac-
counts of his ill-health I found him looking better than for a year or
two. His budget comes on for second reading to-night (he was still
Chancellor of the Exchequer), and Loulou told me in private that it is
quite possible the Government may be beaten on it. Sir William was.
nevertheless, in high spirits, and I think enjoyed my denunciation of
Rosebery as ' Minister of the Stock Exchange.' Alfred Milner came
in and we had some chaff, good-naturedly, about Egypt. Nubar has
been playing his old games there already, giving a concession to a land
140
Digitized by
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1894] The Asquith Wedding 141
company he is interested in. Milner admitted he was an old rogue.
Afterwards in private Loulou told me that his father would probably
retire from public life at the end of the present Parliament. He him-
self intends to do so as soon as the Budget is through.
" loth May, — Margot's wedding day, showery and cold, but with
occasional gleams of sunshine. St. George's cranmied to the ceiling
with the gayest world of the gay. It is the only church in London I
have the smallest romance about, but to me it is interesting and touch-
ing from the vast number of marriages it has seen (including my own).
It is old-fashioned, with nice comfortable pews, and none of the tawdry
Gothic rubbish they are fond' of elsewhere. De Staal was there in the
same pew with us, and there were Rosebery and I believe all the
Ministers, and Gladstone, who came in late and was cheered outside,
and Arthur Balfour. Margot was pale, very pale, but firm and de-
cided, Asquith much smartened up. A great crush in the Tennant
house afterwards in Grosvenor Square, Margot surrounded by a crowd
of women friends. She drove away in a slatey-blue dress, an apple-
green straw hat and dark-blue flowers.
" 18/A May. — In consequence of a talk I have had with Lady Lytton
I have written to Arthur Ellis on the subject of the Khedive's intended
visit to England. In it I said : * When I was leaving Egypt the other
day the Khedive, whom I went to take my leave of, spoke to me of his
proposed visit to Europe, which was then not quite decided on, and
asked me to find out for him confidentially whether if he came to Eng-
land, his reception would be a really cordial one. By this he meant not
so much whether there would be the usual official reception, whatever
that might be, due to his rank, as whether he might count upon the
kindly feeling of the Court and especially of the Prince of Wales to-
wards him. From what I know of him I feel sure that it is more in
the power of the Prince of Wales than of Lord Rosebery or of any
of the officials to place things in Egypt, as far as the Khedive is con-
cerned, on a more satisfactory footing than they have lately been. The
Khedive is very suspicious of Lord Cromer, not as I think entirely
without reason, for the quarrel between them is no doubt largely a
personal one, and I think that, if it could be conveyed to him that he
could count at least on a friendly reception at Marlborough House, he
would be less likely to listen to the advances which are pretty sure to
be made to him in Paris on his way through. In my opinion large
political interests are involved in the issue of this visit.'
" To-day the tenantry of Crabbet presented Judith with a silver cup
on her coming of age. They were most hearty, and recalled the fact
of most of them holding their farms from father to son for generations.
Judith made an admirable speech in reply, delivered in a clear voice
and with a charming manner. Then I showed them some of the family
Digitized by VrrOOQlC
142 The Prince of Wale/ Message [1894
deeds and they all drank champagne in tumblers. The leaders among
them were the two Caffins and young Wright of Pryors Farm. The
servants, too, at Crabbet are making her a presentation. We have, I
think, seven house servants who have been over twenty years with
us.
**2ist May. — An answer has come from Arthur Ellis with an in-
formal message from the Prince of Wales. It is most satisfactory.
He says : * Whilst the Prince of Wales feels some hesitation in send-
ing any message to the Khedive except through the accredited official
channel, I may say that should His Highness determine upon a visit to
England, he will certainly receive from the Prince of Wales and from
society in general every possible attention.' I have written to the
Khedive, conveying to Wm the message."
This little piece of diplomacy I had afterwards reason to regret,
successful as it proved in bringing the Khedive to England. The in-
fluence of Marlborough House was not a wholesome one for the Khe-
dive's patriotism, and in other ways proved detrimental, as will be seen
later.
" 22nd May. — I see a report in the evening paper that the Sultan
has forbidden the Khedive to go to England, but it sounds to me hardly
likely.
" 24th May. — Breakfasted with Sir Henry Loch and had much talk
with him about * civilization ' in Africa. He expressed his fear of the
spread of Mohammedanism southwards as likely to prove a danger. I
wish I could think it. He also asked about Arabia in a way which
sounded as if they may have their eye on it, too, in the scramble that
is going on. He told me the Chinese were driving the Russians back
in Central Asia.
"Anne and Judith have taken rooms at 31, South Street for the
season.
"27th May (Sunday.) — On Wednesday I called on Randolph
Churchill in Grosvenor Square (his mother's house) and had some
political talk with him. He is terribly altered, poor fellow, having
some disease, paralysis, I suppose, which affects his speech, so that it is
painful to listen to him. He makes prodigious efforts to express him-
self clearly, but these are only too visible. He talked of his election
prospects at Bradford and the desire of the Conservatives to delay the
turning out of the Rosebery Government. About Egypt he said, ' You
know my opinion about evacuation is unchanged, but my tongue is
tied.' " This was the last time I saw him. I remember that as- he came
to the door with me he tried again to explain to me what he wanted
to tell me about Egypt, but broke down and said, almost in tears, " I
know what I want to say, but damn it, I can^t say it."
Digitized by
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1894] George Meredith at Box Hill 143
"28/A Af ay.— Breakfast with George Wyndham. He is at last
bringing out his book of French Lyrics. With any luck it should be a
great success.
" loth June (Sunday). — To Wotton to see Evelyn, who is in poor
health. He wants me to act in concert with him on the question of a
new Conservative candidate for East Grinstead. On Thursday I met
Frederic Harrison, just back from France. There is great excitement
about the Anglo-Belgian Agreement in regard to the Congo and Upper
Nile, the last of Rosebery's thieves' treaties, but Harrison says the
wirepullers assure him that the French menace will come to nothing.
I am not so sure, as it is being taken up in Germany also.
"nth June. — Still at Wotton. After luncheon drove to Box Hill to
see George Meredith. Found him with his daughter, a pretty little bar
maiden just engaged to Russell Sturgis, and another young lady. He
is terribly deaf and afflicted with creeping paralysis, so that he staggers
from time to time while walking, and once to-day nearly fell. It does
not, however, affect his mind, and he has a novel on hand at the present
moment which keeps him writing six hours a day. He is a queer,
voluble creature, with a play-acting voice, and his conversation like
one dictating to a secretary, a constant search for epigrams. I took
the bull by the horns at once about his novels, said I never read prose
and looked upon him only as a poet. This pleased him, and he gave
me two volumes, recommending to me especially the piece called
'Attila.' He told me Tennyson was the first person to discover the
merits of * Love in a Valley.' I asked him to explain sundry obscurities
in ' Modern Love,' and he said he would do so if I would come up with
him to a little literary den he has at the top of his garden, but the
young ladies unfortunately followed us, and he was unwilling to talk
about this poem before them, so I missed my chance. During our talk
a luncheon was brought to him on a tray, as he said he was too busy to
sit down to a regular meal, and could not write after one o'clock, so I
left him to his work and drove on. I had driven my four horses in at
the front entrance, a difficult feat, and got them out again and went on
over the hill to Ockham, where I picked up Judith, and back in the
evening again to Wotton over Ranmore Common and down the steep
descent of Coombe Bottom. I fancy in all history no team of four
horses was ever driven before down that road, not even by Tommy On-
slow of happy memory, certainly not by a woman, for Judith had the
reins.
"Compare the local rhyme, for Onslow lived close by:
What can Tommy Onslow do?
He can drive a coach and two.
Can Tommy Onslow do no more?
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144 Six Poets at a Wedding [1894
He can drive a coach and four.
Where shall we his merits fix?
He can drive a coach and six.
" 13th June, — Dr. Leitner called to talk over Egyptian and Moham-
ftiedan affairs. He is gloomy about prospects as I am in the East,
where the old sympathy for Eastern things amongst Englishmen is fast
dying out, and a reign of Western intolerance is taking its place.
There is danger of a partition of the Ottoman dominions, for there is
nowhere the smallest wish in Europe to see reform in them, and all
Powers alike are in arms in Africa against the Mohammedan Arabs.
This is for England and Germany a new feature and a dangerous one
for Islam.
" iSth June, — Miss Violet Maxse's wedding, an omnium gatherum,
social, political, and literary. The bridegroom, Lord Salisbury's third
son, brought the Tories ; Maxse, the Liberal Unionists, with Chamber-
lain and the rest ; the young lady, her friends. I counted six poets in
the church, including myself, Alfred Austin, George Meredith, Alfred
Lyall, Oscar Wilde, and Edwin Arnold. I found myself next to Lyall,
who told me the latest joke about the Laureateship. * H one must have
a Laureate, choose the least of evils, choose Austin.' At the bride's
house the crowd was immense, and I found myself for ten minutes
flattened like a herring between Lord Salisbury and a tall Dutch clock.
Truly matrimony makes strange pew fellows.
'* 22nd June, — Gave a dinner at Mount Street to Lady Granby, Lucy
Smith, d'Estournelles, Alfred Lyall, and Godfrey Webb, all of us more
or less poets. After dinner we read and recited poetry, d'Estournelles
being by far the most effective, having an admirable manner.
" I hear that Edward Malet is going to resign his Embassy at Berlin
because he was not consulted on the Congo arrangement.
" 26th June, — Received a visit from M. Ducroix, Editor of the Paris
' Matin.' He asked me my opinion of the situation in Egypt, and I
gave it him very frankly, and of French policy there. ' French diplo-
macy,' I said, * had made two capital mistakes, first in not supporting
native as opposed to European interests, and, secondly, in making the
perpetual opposition it does to our English policy without being pre-
pared to fight.' He said they were his own views. Reverseaux had
to his own knowledge promised the Khedive to back him in the Spring
of 1893 with a French fleet at Alexandria, and then had left him in the
lurch. It was the fault of the home Government more than Rever-
seaux's.
" 30th June and 1st July, — Our Annual Crabbet Qub Meeting. The
members present were:
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1894] Keats Memorial Ceremony 145
George Wyndham, Hubert Howard,
George Curzon, Godfrey Webb,
George Peel, Mark Napier,
George Leveson Gower, Theobald Mathew,
Esme Howard, Charles Gatty,
St George Lane Fox, Laurence Currie,
Eddy Tennant,
with three new members. Lord Cairns, Alfred Douglas, and Basil
Blackwood.
** i^th July. — Called on Frank Lascelles, who is just starting as
Ambassador for St. Pettersburg. We talked over old and new times.
He and I were exact contemporaries, both in age and in the diplomatic
service, and it is just thirty years ago that we were at Madrid together
as attachis. Without any very special abilities he has made a rapid
career by hard work and good sense. We talked of the Asiatic question
and the Eg3rptian question. He does not believe in the possibility of
saving any part of Persia from Russia, who could take it whenever
she has a mind to. I walked with him to call on Staal, and left him at
the door.
" 16/A July. — To the Keats memorial meeting at Hampstead with
George Wyndham, a curious ceremony. It took place in the parish
church, the vicar and his choir assisting in surplices, but the proceed-
ings were entirely mundane. Gosse, who presided, made a dull, plati-
tudinous oration in the tone of a sermon (his father was a Nonconform-
ist lecturer), and the others were even duller. Houghton alone was
brief and to the point. The poet's bust was then unveiled, and through-
out the only allusion to religion was when one of the speakers enumer-
ated what Keats was not, and included in the list that he was not a re-
ligious propagandist. When all was over the worthy vicar consoled
himself with some prayers and an anthem.
" 17/A July. — A brilliant luncheon with Margot and her husband at
30, Upper Grosvenor Street, and I took her her Wedding Ode, which
I had written for her amusement. The other guests were Mrs. Grcn-
fell, Mrs. Daisy White, Ribblesdale, his brother Reggie Lister, and
Oscar Wilde, all immensely talkative, so that it was almost like a
breakfast in France. Asquith alone rather out of it. I sat next to
him and was rather sorry for him, though he was probably happy
enough. Afterwards, when the rest had gone away, Oscar remained,
telling stories to me and Margot."
This is a very poor account of an interesting, and in the sequel a
tragic, incident which has remained strongly impressed on my mind, as
it was one that showed Oscar Wilde at the height of his social glory,
and as the last occasion on which I found myself in his company. Of
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146 Oscar Wilde. '7 Never Walk'' [1894
all those present, and they were most of them brilliant talkers, he was
without comparison the most brilliant, and in a perverse mood he chose
to cross swords with one after the other of them, overpowering each in
turn with his wit, and making special fun of Asquith, his host that day,
who only a few months later, as Home Secretary, was prosecuting him
on the notorious criminal charge which sent him to hard labour in
prison. I remember, too, as a characteristic trait of his dandyism, that
when at the end of the half hour we remained on talking, we went
away together from the door, I to walk back to my rooms in Mount
Street, and he to pay a visit in the same direction, hardly farther. I
said, " We will walk together as far as Grosvenor Square." ** No,
no," he said, and called a passing hansom. " I never walk."
This was the end of my London season, and the only extracts I can
find in my diary at all of a public character, which was otherwise de-
voted entirely to the social care of amusement and launching Judith in
the world. It is a record especially of dinners that I gave, and which
were for a moment rather the fashion with the Soul society at my
rooms in Mount ^Street.
" 2Sth July. — Crabbet. With Judith on a pilgrimage to see Huxley
at Eastbourne. He lives in a new house he has built near the cliflf and
with Beachy Head behind it. He was very cordial and pleasant, and
his wife, an excellent old soul, most kind to Judith. We had only two
hours with him but we talked all the time about the origin of the
Arabian horse, and I think I got from him all the information he had
to give. He said that in reality nothing was known at all clearly except
that horses were unknown in Egypt under the fourth dynasty, that
there had been a close connection with Arabia, and that if there had been
horses in Arabia there would have been horses also in Egypt, but how
they eventually came to Arabia was mere guesswork. Arabia had
doubtless been in former times well watered, and it was possible a wild
horse might have been isolated there in the South (this was my sugges-
tion) long after the drying up of the northern plateaux, but the his-
torical evidence, such as there was, was against it. We might expect
something from the cuneiform records when thoroughly examined.
Pietrement's theories were merely speculative.
" Of the human race in Egypt he said that he had long suspected a
common origin for them with the Dravidians of India, perhaps a long
belt of brown-skinned men from India to Spain in very early days. Of
savage races, he said he had no sympathy with them; he considered
there was more difference between the man of the criminal class in
London at the present day and the high type of educated thinker^ than
between the Australian savage and, say, the average man of the time
of Elizabeth. * Yet,' I objected, * I suppose you could educate your
Digitized by
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1894] Francis Thompson 147
young criminal into being a bishop/ ' Yes/ he said, ' a bishop would
be easy enough because the other bishops would look after him, but not
a country parson, that would be a dangerous experiment.' He was sur-
prised to learn that grey Arab horses were not foaled grey.
" 6th Aug. — A party at Crabbet for Sunday. The Meynells, George
Wyndham, Alfred Douglas, and Blanche Wortley. Coventry Patmore,
Henley, and Locker could not come. Meyndl told us much that was
interesting about Francis Thompson, who is the latest discovered of the
poets.
" Thompson's history is most curious. He was educated at Ushaw,
and his father wanted him to become a doctor, but he had a distaste
for it and could not or would not pass his examinations. This led to a
quarrel, for the father had married a second time, and Thompson was
turned out of the house, or left it in anger. He came to London, where
he fell into extreme poverty, walking the streets as a beggar for five
years and sleeping under the arches by the Thames. The money he
earned he spent on opium, which drugged him to endurance of his life.
Nevertheless, he once attempted suicide, spending what remained to him
on a large dose of laudanum enough to kill two men. He divided it
into two portions and retired to I forget what cemetery in the city and
took the first half — whereupon he had a vision in which he saw Chat-
terton, who took him by the hand and comforted him, and reminded
him how the very morning after his suicide a letter had come from a
publisher which would have relieved him. So he did not take the sec-
ond dose, and recovered to find the dream fulfilled by the arrival pre-
cisely of a letter from a friend enclosing him the cutting of one of his
poems printed by Meynell in ' Merrie England.' Thompson had been
in the habit of writing poems on any scraps of paper he could pick up
and had sent several of them to Meynell, and among them a paper on
Paganism and Christianity, which Meynell had pigeon-holed and for-
gotten till six months later, when he read them and found them excel-
lent. Then he had tried to get into communication with Thompson, but
had lost trace of him and had published the papers in hope of attracting
the author's attention. This succeeded, and Thompson, seeing his writ-
ings in print, wrote Meynell an angry letter about it, giving the address
of a chemist's shop near Charing Cross. Thither Meynell went, and
on inquiry was told that Thompson owed a bill there of four shillings
for opium, that he had no abode, but might be found at nights in the
street in front of Charing Cross Station.
"Through the intervention of the chemist he was eventually dis-
covered and sent to Meynell's house apparently with but few weeks to
live, for he was dying of opium. Meynell wanted him to go to a hos-
pital, but at first he refused on account of a girl with whom he had a
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148 A Visit to Stratford [1894
friendship in the streets. She had been kind to him, just as had been
the case with De Quincy, and Thompson refused to go anywhere where
he should be unable to see her. But the girl insisted that he should go
to the hospital, and when he came out of it cured she had disappeared.
I asked Meynell whether it was not a case of love rather than friend-
ship, but he said : ' No. Thompson told me that it was not so, that
in his condition there could have been no question of physical love ; he
was too constantly starved.' Thus Thompson was saved. He has
now for the last year been sent to Pantasaph, the Capuchin monastery,
where he is taken care of and kept away from drugs. He writes poetry
and prose and has no other occupation. Meynell will bring him here
one day. He showed us a fine poem of his still in manuscript, entitled
* Amphicypellon,' which he will have printed privately."
This was followed by a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon, which I
had long intended, and whidi I now accomplished, going by road with
my four horses, and taking my cousin Alfred Douglas with me, stop-
ping at several friends* 'houses on our way. Lady Hayter's at South
Hill, and Dr. Watney's at Buckholt, and Mr. Harvey's at Woodstock.
Then across the Wolds by Chipping Norton to Stanway, where we were
amongst relations, and so on, two days later, to Stratford. Of this I
write:
" 13th Aug. — All the way to Stratford there are lovely villages,
houses of the seventeenth century built of stone, with stone roofs, peo-
ple harvesting magnificent crops, but it is a thing to remark that in all
this country, north of the Wiltshire and Oxfordshire downs there is
no single common, or bit of waste land where a traveller might pitch
his tent. Stratford itself is a very pretty town, standing on a fine,
clear river, with little that is modern about it, marred only by the
monstrous Shakespeare memorial, a Victorian building, perhaps the
most degraded in architecture of our graceless age. Here Alfred left
me in a hurry to return to London, while I stayed on fulfilling the ob-
ject of my pilgrimage by reading the Sonnets at the poet's tomb.
" Sitting on the chancel steps and in full view of the monument with
the poet's portly bust and its inscription, a new light broke on me with
regard to his character, and I seemed to see him with less mystery, the
full fed prosperous citizen he doubtless was in his later years, affecting
gentility and honoured of his neighbours. The truth is there is nothing
really more romantic in a poet than in other men when seen at home.
The original cast of his face they show in Shakespeare's house, said to
have been taken after death, shows him a strong practical man, not over
refined, one who at the present day would have been a successful jour-
nalist and man of letters. The Shakespeare of the Sonnets does not
appear in this bust, rather the playwright and ready writer of dialogue
for the stage. I can imagine him in this year of grace, 1894, figuring
Digitized by
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1894] With Morris at Kelmscot* 149
as a George Augustus Sala, or a Druriolanus in the London literary and
dramatic world. Fortunately he was born 300 years ago.*
"On my way home I stopped at Kelmscott, where after dinner we
played at twenty questions, the things chosen for our guessing being
the white horse of White Horse Hill, the pen Qiaucer wrote the fijst
line of the Canterbury Tales with, and the American volume of Ros-
setti's * House of Life,' which Morris gave his wife. It is always a
pleasure to find Rossetti still a living memory in this house.
" 16th Aug. — Made a late start as I dawdled on talking with
Morris, and trying to prove to him that he and Ruskin had done more
harm than good by their attempt to make English people love beauty
and decorate their architecture. He defended himself good-humour-
edly, but I think has doubts, nevertheless, for we are engulfed to-day
in a slough of ornament. I maintained that the old-fashioned square
cardboard box style was less abominable, as were the days when it was
considered bad taste to attempt any kind of prettiness. However at
noon I got away and drove in floods of rain to Uffington, and up the
face of White Horse Hill. There the sun came out, and I pitched my
tent under lee of the ancient camp where there was a splendid crop of
grass for the horses, and stopped for the night. There was a full
moon, and it was bitter cold. Morris declares the White Horse to be
a work of the Stone Age, probably 20,000 years old. In the night my
horses, which I had tethered to the carriage pole, broke loose and wan-
dered away, and I had a long run after them in the moonlight during
which I crossed the old white chalk one, without finding mine, but it
is hard to track horses on the grass, and we could do nothing till day-
light, and not much then. In the course of the moniing they were
1 Not long ago, being asked to write a sonnet for the Shakespeare Tercente-
nary I embodied my impression gathered on this occasion at Stratford in the
following :
"A Tercentenary Sonnet
" Shakespeare, what wisdom shall truth tell of thee,
More than fame speaks? The world thy playhouse is
Packed floor to roof to-night with votaries
Shouting thy author's name vociferously.
They call thee to the curtain front. Ah me.
Hast thou no word for our sublimities,
No cryptogram of grace to crown our bliss?
Nay speak out all, thou man of mystery.
Tell us the truth. — I seem to hear a voice
From far-off Stratford, pestered at the call,
The voice of a hale man of middle age,
Civic, respected : * Who are these lewd boys
Would call me back to their fool's festival?
Truce to all mummings. I have left the stage.' "
25 February, 19161
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150 Savernake Forest [1894
fortunately brought back by some farm people who had found them
grazing two miles away. We then
" 17th Aug. — Followed the Ridgeway, a rough grass track along the
crest of the down as far as near Lyddington Castle, when, striking a
high road, we turned left and came to Aldboume, and so to the Kennet
river and Savernake Forest, where just before sunset we camped under
one of the beech avenues, a lovely spot, dry and secluded, except for the
wandering fallow deer. To-night we bivouacked, there being no sign
of rain. It was my birthday of fifty-four, yet I feel little of the cares
of age.
" iSth Aug, — Away before seven driving across the forest, which is
splendid. Near its centre stands a column with the following inscrip-
tion of supreme grandiloquence:
This column was erected
by Thomas Bruce Earl of Ailesbury
as a testimony
of gratitude
to his ever hofioured uncle
Charles Earl of Ailesbury and Elgin
who left him these Estates
and procured for him the Barony of Tottenham;
and of loyalty
to his most Gracious Sovereign
George III
who unsolicited conferred upon him
the honour of an Earldom,
but above all
of Piety
To GOD FIRST HIGHEST BEST
whose blessing consecrateth every gift
and (ixeth its true value
MDCCLXXXI
** On the other side is a second inscription hardly less amusing:
In commemoration
of
a signal instance of Heaven's protecting Providence
OVER THESE KINGDOMS
in the year 1789
by restoring to perfect health
from a long and afflicting disorder
their excellent and beloved Sovereign
GEORGE THE THIRD
This tablet was inscribed
by
GEORGE BRUCE EARL OF AILESBURY
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18947 Stonehenge 151
" After Savernake we came down into the Avon valley at Pewscy,
and f oUowed the river on to Amcsbury where we baited, and so later
to Stonehenge where we camped about half a mile from the stones
under lee of a small plantation. The stones I found in possession when
I arrived of American tourists, but even these could do little to injure
the fine calm of the place, and they were soon gone, and about midnight
I returned and went again in full solitude to the stones and spent an
hour there alone, making incantations in the hope of raising some ghost
of ancient times, but in vain, and though I repeated the Lord's Prayer
backwards, nothing would come. Perhaps it was the fact that in order
to do so without a book I had first to repeat each sentence in its natural
sequence, and this may have neutralized the spell. Then I lay down
under one of the fallen block^ and dozed off for an hour or two, but
still nothing. Stonehenge has much in common with primitive Eg3rpt.
" igth Aug. (Sunday). — Moved eight miles on to Quarly Hill, and
camped to the west of it. All this plain must once have been heath
with scattered juniper bushes, for every here and there on the poorer
land, as here and at Stonehenge, there are heath and juniper patches
left. It is the modern sheep grazing that has brought the grass.
" Called on Major Poore who lives at Middlecote, close by, and dined
with him. He is Urquhart's last disciple and still preaches his doc-
trines. They have elected him a County Councillor, and he is organiz-
ing his district on a system of his own, and teaching the villagers to live
according to the Chinese idea of domestic socialism. He is doing
good, or at any rate is very happy in the thought that he is doing so.
He talked much of Urquhart and his personal charm. We passed to-
day close by Wilbury, which is sacred in my recollection on account
of Percy and Madeline W)mdham, whose home it was for so many
years.
" 2Gth Aug. — I am running homewards now, a long day's march, by
a grass road to Stockbridge, and thence to Winchester. I was deter-
mined to re-visit the scene of my old slave days at Twyford School."
This I accomplished, but the account of it in my diary is too long and
too personal for insertion here. Another two days, 22nd August,
brought me home to Crabbet, making up 345 miles by road in the fifteen
days and a half of my pilgrimage.
Visits to Saighton and Cumloden occupy the rest of my diary of this
summer of 1894, but it contains nothing of any political consequence.
On 2gth September I write :
" I am preparing for a long departure from England, which may be
for years and may be for ever, for I am in the mood for farewells. In
public matters there has been the war between Japan and China. My
sympathies are with Japan, because her victory will mean a check put
to European expansion in that quarter of the globe, and an encourage-
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152 Japan at War with China [1894
ment to Orientals everywhere to arm themselves and fight against it.
Old-fashioned China is a colossus, with feet of clay, interesting, but
doomed if it does not put its house in order, somewhat on European
lines. The Japanese stand towards China much as Arabi and the
Liberal party in Egypt stood towards Turkey twelve years ago. The
defeat of Japan by China would have meant immediate European in-
terference in Japan^s affairs.
" I am leaving home for Gros Bois, Tunis, and Egypt, and am making
arrangements to stay abroad over next summer, but I promise nothing
to myself. Anne and Judith will meet me in Egypt in the middle of
November, that is far enough ahead for my hopes to look, and so to
Crabbet I bid a long good-bye. I shall perhaps never go back to it as
my home, for I have plans of making Newbuildings my Sussex home
instead. We are so much abroad, that so large a house and establish-
ment are thrown away on us. Newbuildings would fulfil all our pur-
poses."
My usual autumn visit to Gros Bois lasted till i8th October. While
there, there is one entry worth transscribing :
" 14th Oct, (Sunday), — To Paris for the day and breakfasted with
General Faverot. He had with him General Descharmes, a young M.
de Sivry (a grandson, Wagram tells me, of the Duke of Brunswick),
and a son of General Fleury. Descharmes talked much of Japan,
where he was military instructor for some years, and in glowing terms
of their success in the war with China. He declares them to have
le diable dans le corps for fighting, and that it would take a European
Power all it knew to beat them. ' I would not,' he said, * undertake to
land an army in Japan with less than 60,000 men, all Frenchmen.' "
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CHAPTER VIII
A VISIT TO TUNIS AND TRIPOLI
My winter's journey this year began with a visit I had long designed
to pay to my cousin, Terence Bourke, in Tunis, where he had bought
land in the neighbourhood of Bizerta, and had made his home, having
also the position there of unpaid British Vice-Consul. He was a
younger brother of my old ally, " Button," who figures so conspicuously
in my former volumes, and, like him and all the Bourkes, was gifted
with extreme natural ability for dealing with men and generally for
affairs. Terence, by this special quality, had made for himself an ex-
ceptional position in the regency of Tunis. He had learnt to talk
Tunisian Arabic perfectly, and had acquired an influence with the na-
tive Tunisians of all classes, unrivalled by any other European. Of
all the men I have known who have had dealings with the East, and
whom I have seen engaged with them in conversation, I place him first
in his power of making friends with them, for he has what Englishmen
so seldom possess, an inexhaustible patience equal to the Oriental's own,
which enables him to sit as they do, hour after hour, conversing with
them, and show no weariness however dull their talk. This is a great
power, and through it he has always been successful in acquiring their
attentive sympathy, and in obtaining from them their confidence and
help. I have often thought that if our Foreign Office had had the wit
to name Terence its Ambassador at the Sultan's Court, Abdul Hamid
would have remained to this day the ally of England, instead of its
obstinate enemy, but that is a kind of intelligence seldom found in
Downing Street. This is my diary of my time with him.
*'2ist Oct. (Sunday). — Arrived after a smooth passage at Tunis.
The weather still very hot here. Terence met me on the quay, and we
came straight up to his house in the Moslem quarter, a lovely old tile-
encrusted bit of bric'd'brac as one would wish to live in. One enters
by a side door in an arched passage, through which the street passes,
and by a steep, tortuous stair to the upper floor. One has to stoop to
pass into the apartment, and finds oneself in a marble patio with four
pillars, supporting a dome open from above, the walls partly tiled, partly
in white marble, and the woodwork of the roof painted in red and green.
From this central hall, which is about 20 feet square, the rooms branch
oflF, the house being roughly speaking, though not exactly, cross-shaped,
153
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154 A Visit to Tunis [1894
with stair and passage leading to the harem at two of the comers.
The furnishing is simple and CDriental, but without pretence. Terence
keeps one young man as house servant, a porter and two women, a
widow and her sister, whom being in poor circumstances, he took into
his house through kindness, Moslems though they are, without offence
in the neighbourhood, and who are his servants, strong, able-bodied
women who go silently about the rooms with arms and legs bare and
unveiled.
"After an excellent breakfast, Terence took me to the bazaars,
which are more beautiful and more purely Oriental than any I have
seen, and then to the Bey's town palace, built, but on a large scale,
in the same style as his own little house^ which I have just described.
In contrast to all this we then passed through the French quarter, mean,
noisy, and with stinks beyond description, whereas the Arab town is
sedate and clean and quiet. I have never anywhere seen a contrast so
entirely in favour of Islam. Tunis has recently been made a seaport
by the French, through the device of banking up and dredging a State
canal, across the shallow lagoon which divides Tunis from the sea,
just as the Suez Canal crosses Lake Menzaleh, it is difficult to under-
stand with what commercial object, as there is not sufficient space
inside for many ships to lie. A better plan would have been to make
the port at Goleta, the site of Carthage, which is near the sea, and is
already connected by railway with Tunis.
"22fid Oct. — Drove with Terence to the site of Carthage, where
Cardinal Lavigerie has built an unsightly cathedral and monastery, with
a buvette attached to it for pilgrims to the shrine of St. Louis. St
Louis died here on his last unfortunate crusade and, Terence tells me,
is venerated as a saint by the Moslems as well as by the Christians of
the district, who affirm that on his death-bed he made profession of
Islam. He is known to them as Sidi Abu Said, and they show his
tomb at a village of that name hard by. The waiting room, never-
theless, of the monastery is adorned with huge cartoons in illustration
of his victories and death as a Christian saint, coloured in the vilest
form of French ecclesiastic art. The gasconading of these pieces is
worthy of Lavigerie, an ambitious prelate who pushed himself into
public notice, with the aid of French Chauvinism, intending to become
Pope. This, however, was not in the decrees of Providence.
" From Carthage we went on to Marta, a summer seaside residence
of rich Tunisians, and lunched with Drummond Hay, our Consul-
General, and his family. They are moving in a few days to Beirout.
With Hay I had much talk on North African affairs. He tells me
the French are trjdng to work their frontier round by Merzouk to the
south of Tripoli, where they are beginning to open markets, but he
thinks that eventually they will find strong resistance in the Senussi
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1894] Terrence Bourke at Bizerta 155
confraternity. They are making friends, however, with the Tuar^^s
and the Negroid inhabitants of the southern oases. As to Egypt, he
professes to share my view of the danger and uselessness of our hold-
ing it. He told me that he had recently been given the opinion of one
of our high naval experts, and that it was to the effect that in case
of war with France the garrison in Egypt would have at once to be
withdrawn, and indeed the whole Mediterranean evacuated by our
fleet. To hold Egypt would not be possible.
'' I find it very difficult to carry on a conversation in the Tunisian
dialect, even the commonest Arabic words are either unknown here
or so travestied as to be unrecognizable. There is a fondness for
diminutives and for throwing the accent on the last syllable. Amidst
the more educated class a better Arabic is spoken, as also I believe by
the Arabs of the South and the Bedouins generally, but the Berbers
are nearly unintelligible to me. Terence speaks to all with the great-
set fluency, a vile patois but with precisely the native Tunisian accent.
His slightly falsetto voice completing his disguise as no European.
" 23rd Oct. — Called with Terence on Rifault, the French President
in Charge, who told me nothing interesting, only the common banal-
ities used to strangers on such occasions ; and on General Leclerc, the
French commander-in-chief. This done, we took carriage with a pair
of mules for Bizerta, where Terence has a European house, a distance
of some forty miles in less than five hours. A long, dull road with
long stretches of brown fields, at this time of year empty of all life
except that of a few poor tents, with cattle grazing on the stubbles.
It is not till near Bizerta that the hills begin.
*' 2^th Oct. — At Bizerta. Terence's house here is less interesting
than the other, being modem and European in style. He has told me
about his domestic life in Tunis. The two women who keep house
for him there lived in his quarter and were very poor, and he has
allowed them to inhabit his house, which they look after in return.
At first, he said, the neighbours objected to these Moslem women living
under the same roof with him, but now they have accepted him in
their quarter and find no fault. Thus he has been able to lead a quite
native life, has learned the language (Tunisian Arabic) thoroughly,
and knows more of the people than any European in Tunis. Here in
Bizerta he manages his large property, takes contracts of all kinds,
speculates in oil, and acts as Her Majesty's unpaid Vice-Consul at an
office in the town. He seems beloved of all, and it is natural, for he
is kindly and quiet and full of intelligent talk, and he has that rare
virtue in an Englishman of being never in a hurry, or bored, or out
of temper, or too busy to see and speak to the poorest man that calls
on him. We went together to see a few details of his management.
" 2$th Oct. — We went round the old town, once a famous pirate's
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156 Tunisian Horses [i894
nest, now becoming little by little invaded by Europeans, but still in-
teresting, and stopped to drink coffee with a fat citizen, one of Terence's
friends. In the evening we rode down into the village and talked again,
but I am confounded to find that I understand hardly a word of what
is said. Terence is happy and at home wkh everybody and has a
fund of good humour which makes him everywhere le bienventi. We
played chess in the evening.
" 26th Oct. — We have had much talk all day on Oriental and re-
ligious subjects, and I find Terence to have ideas not unlike mine on
these matters, and we have made a plan of going in the Spring to visit
the Senussi in the Tripolitan desert and perhaps making profession
of Islam, at least I hope some day to do so. I think a hermitage of
the kind I have been seeking might be found in the country near Cyrene.
In the evening we made a round of the eastern shores of the lake in
a steam launch belonging to the Harbour Company.
"28th October (Sunday ).— Back to Tunis. Terence tdls me the
agricultural colonists here are of a superior class to those of Algeria,
there being some young Frenchmen of good family among them.
These are opposed to annexation, and take the part of the natives as
against the encroachments of the officials, but the town colonists are
for making Tunis a French province. The worst of all are some from
Algeria, where they are all rabid against * les Arabes.*
*' 2gth Oct, — Once more in Terence's delightful house in Tunis,
Rue des Silots, 41. A young Tunisian came in to-day to play chess
with me and I won two games of him, but he has considerable ideas
of play on the Arab lines, which I fancy were once also those of
Europe. The principal differences in rule are that the pawns cannot
advance two steps at a time at their first move and that castling is
performed in three moves, the king having the right on the second
occasion to manoeuvre like a knight. This young man, who is well
educated, talked a quite comprehensible Arabic, and I am beginning to
understand the others.
"We went in the morning to see the cavalry remonte and were
shown sixty or seventy stallions, half-a-dozen of them Arab, none
good, except one old horse said to be a Shouey-man from Nablous.
The best were four white barbs from the province of Oran, thick set,
short legged, which would be handsome if they had less drooping
quarters. The native Tunisians unfit to breed from in any country.
" 30th Oct. — Started with Terence for Kerouan by road with four
horses abreast in a landau, very like the old vetturino travelling in
Italy of fifty years ago, very slow but pleasant in fine weather. We
rested two hours at midday on the road under a Carob tree, and stopped
for the night at a fondouk, a clean airy place the property of a Sherif a,
a widow of Tunis, whose husband btdlt it as a speculation forty years
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i894l With Terence to Kerouan 157
ago. It used to be a paying concern, but the new diligence service has
spoiled its trade, the respectable keeper of it told us. These fondouks
are like the khans in Turkey, a number of little empty rooms paved
with tiles, where the traveller pays a few piastres for his night's lodg-
ing and provides his own food. We paid five francs, which included
a franc for stabling. I should be glad to be always as well lodged in
Europe. The road passes over a series of plains, partly cultivated in
the summer, but all bare now, the hills beyond very beautiful.
"31st Oct. — Another long drive, crossing the Enfida estate. This
caused at one time a political question between England and France,
the facts of the case being these: Kheireddin Pasha (the same who was
afterwards Grand Vizier at Constantinople) having got together this
immense property sold it to a French land company, whereupon a right
of pre-emption was claimed by a Jew, a protected British subject, as
neighbouring proprietor. It was before the French Occupation, and
both governments backed their own clients for political reasons. The
Jew's claim, however, was a rather doubtful one, and as the French
.company gave more than the land was worth, he was in fact no loser,
and the British Government gave way. The estate consists of a vast
tract of plain, most of it capable of cultivation, but exposed to the
south winds. The company has planted many hundreds of acres with
vines, but on the whole Terence says it does not pay. The high road
passes for several miles through it, and through the chief farming es-
tablishment of which they are trying to make a town of the usual
French kind, with poplars and eucal)rptus trees.
" Beyond this there is nothing more in the shape of a house until
one gets to Kerouan. We were so pleased with our night at the fondouk
that we determined to go to another at Kerouan instead of to the
French Hotel. (We were both travelling in Eastern dress.) And so
after some wandering in the streets, it being already dark, we have
taken up our quarters at a house of reception, which is entirely Arab,
and entirely Moslem, about the centre of the town. It is an okeUah
or lodging house, where merchants hire rooms by the month in which
to deposit their goods and sleep. We pass in it for an Indian Moslem
merchant and his friend, a Syrian, from Damascus.
" ist Nov. — The okeUah is a poor place. We have one little room
between us like a prison cell, opening on to a balcony which runs round
the inner court, open at the top. It is dirty and bug ridden, but decent
and essentially Oriental. The proprietor is a respectable merchant,
originally from Sfax, who sits all day in a room on the ground floor,
which is his shop and counting-house. His trade is to buy wool and
other desert produce from the Bedouins, and to sell them linen cloth.
A number of them have been all the morning in the courtyard, very
noisy in their bargainings, most of them of the Slasi tribe who have a
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158 We Lodge at an Okeilah [1894
good robber reputation inherited from past times. Our driver, Rashid,
pointed out to us yesterday the sandy passage in the road where cara-
vans used to be attacked by them in the good old days, and even some-
times now of dark nights. This reminds me that about ten miles from
the town we came upon a mounted Arab who shoutsed to us as he
passed that a cousin of his had just been killed upon the road, and he
was riding for help.
" The proprietor has a son, a simple-minded youth in a white tur-
ban, who comes to sit with us and talk, and there are two servants,
one a merry man who makes coffee at the door, the other a vague old
mendicant who occasionally sweeps out the rooms, and goes on errands.
Both these are hashish smokers openly, for at Kerouan there is no
shame in the drug, and Terence, who went down to spend the evening
below after I had gone to sleep, tells me the kawaji was most amusing,
indeed they were all in roars of laughter through the night.
" Terence is incomparable as a traveller for he has the readiest pos-
sible wit and a pleasant word for everyone, and wherever he goes smiles
break forth, and a kindly feeling of goodwill from man and maid.
He also is an admirable cook, and with Saleh his servant, has given us
excellent dishes stewed over a spirit lamp. He can sleep anywhere,
and all day long, and never is put out, or bored, or in a hurry, withal
of an exceeding good sense and knowledge of the proportion of things,
prudent, economical, persistent, the reverse in fact of all that dis-
tinguishes Europeans in the East, and astounding at his age (twenty-
four).
" We went out last night in the streets, and again this morning, and
I think that no one suspects us of a disguise, though they are somewhat
puzzled at our affairs. We went to the Mosques directly after break-
fast, first to Sidi Okba's of which we entered the outer court only, for
the inner shrine was being repaired, and a surly guardian refused us
entrance, saying that without order from Sidna el Morakeb the doors
could not be opened, so we had to be content with peeping in and
complaining of the tyranny. We saw, however, pretty nearly all there
was to be seen before we were turned out. At the other Mosque
outside the town we were more fortunate. Here we were admitted,
and saw all, and made our devotions at the tomb of Sidi Sahabi un-
questioned. It was very hot all day, and we lay stewing in the balcony
of the okeilah till the asr and playing chess, to the wonder of the
proprietor's son, whom we told it was an Indian game. Then we went
through the bazaars and outside the town to see the walls, all very
interesting, and as yet little spoilt by the French invasion, and spent
the evening on mats under the city walls, where there was an Arab
coffee house, drinking lemonade, and so the long day ended.
**2nd Nov. — This morning, being Friday, the Mueddhin chaunted
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the whole prayer from the Minarets — and there is one just outside the
okeilah — beginning at four and going on more than half an hour, a
fine old-world ceremony, disappearing alas from Islam. Kerouan,
however, is a holy city, and preserves some at least of its traditions.
We were up with the first light, and having drunk coffee prepared for
us by our friend the hashishi, and induced his old companion to carry
our baggage, which he did with great unwillingness for he was still
drowsy with his opium, and paid our two nights' score at the okeilah,
three francs and a few coppers — it would have been the same if we
had taken our rooms for a month, and the proprietor was too sleepy
to get up and see to it — we went out through the half awake streets
to the Eastern gate, and the office of the new tramway, where we
waited an hour and saw the sun rise. Terence employed the time re-
peating to me a story told in the okeilah by the merchant of Sf ax, which
is as good as most in the Arabian Nights. (It is too long to insert
here, and I reserve it for another occasion.) Then we took our places
in the tram, and went at a fine gallop across the desolate plains in four
hours to the sea at Sus, where we once more put off our Moslem gar-
ments and washed and dined at a Prankish restaurant. The tram jour-
ney between Kerouan and Sus is a curious mixture of old and new.
The coach runs on rails laid across the open fields, drawn by horses
running beside it with a long loose trace, so that when it crosses ravines
the horses gallop beside it up and down the steep places without check-
ing their pace. The track is all more or less down hill, so that once
started the coach goes by its own weight, and the horses have all they
can do to keep up with it in certain places, not being harnessed to any
pole, the only check on the coach being a brake worked by the con-
ductor in the steepest parts, a most exhilarating way of travelling, and
quite practical for that particular journey.
** Sus is a lovely old battlemented town as yet little spoilt, though
the usual obscene French houses are springing up outside it. I walked
all over and around it and through its bazaars. There is a fine citadel
commanding the town on which a French flag is hanging half-mast
high. The Emperor of Russia is dead.
" Here we both took ship, Terence to return to Tunis, I to go on
to Tripoli, touching at Monastir and Mehadir, two lovely mediaeval
strongholds by the sea. In the latter I had the good luck to make a
friend. Seeing a nice clean Arab coffee-house in front of the mosque,
I sat down in it at the same time with a respectable Bedouin, whom I
saluted. He ordered at once two cups of coffee, and we talked and
made friends, he in good Arabic, a very worthy man, living, he told
me, some ten miles from the town, and he has promised, if he passes
through Egypt next year on the pilgrimage, to alight at Sheykh Obeyd.
I have seldom met a better bred or more kindly man. At Sfax, where
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i6o An Adventure at Sfax [^894
we arrived at daylight next morning, 4th Nov., I had an odd adven-
ture. Having made acquaintance with a respectable looking man in the
boat which took us to the shore, I was glad to accept his invitation that
he should show me round the town, which he did with all politeness,
and then invited me to his house. This was in a by street of no very
reputable appearance, the entrance being by a low door where a donkey
stood tied, and on entering I saw at once that it was no Moslem house,
as I had supposed my friend to be, for there were women there un-
veiled, and it flashed on me what was the truth, that they were Jews.
This became clearly the case when they set a meal of greasy bread
before me, and tried to make me drink absinthe, and I had some dif-
ficulty in finding excuse to get away and to explain that I was not
myself a Jew, for my conductor had come to the conclusion that I
must be one, for my having condescended to speak to him and enter
his house, for in these North African towns the Jews are treated as
pariahs by the Mohammedans, and he did not understand it as possible
that I could be other than one of his own nation treating him with the
politeness I had shown. It is no less characteristic of the position
Jews hold in Tunis that as soon as i had explained to him the mistake
he had made, his manner at once became changed from one of hos-
pitable anxiety to please, to one of undignified begging for a bakshish,
which I was of course only to glad to give, feeling that the fault had
been mine.
" Sfax is an interesting, and except for the Jew quarter, a wholly
Moslem town, inhabited mostly by Sherifs, every other man wearing
the green turban. It was bombarded and barbarously treated by the
French in 1881. The captain of our steamer, the Ville de Tunis, tells
me that this was in some measure a mistake. When the town was
summoned by the French fleet to capitulate, it happened that, being
the 14th of July, in the interval before the answer was received, a
salute was fired in honour of the day, and the people of Sfax, think-
ing it an attack and that the shots had fallen short of the town,
refused terms of unconditional surrender oflFered to them. The town
was then bombarded in earnest, two breaches were made in the walls,
and the place was stormed. The French lost 700 men and gave the
Moslem quarter over to sack for twelve hours (this the captain denies,
but it is historical), during which the houses were broken into and
the women ravished; the broken doors were long left unmended in
token against them, and I noticed when I walked through the Moslem
quarter in the morning that many doors showed new locks recently put
in and new panels not yet painted. The city walls have been mended,
but the town inside and the bazaars look poor compared with Sus.
The wealth of the town lies outside in the gardens, several hundreds
of which surround it. all belonging to the Moslem inhabitants. The
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1894I The Gabez Oasis 161
French colonists have tried to buy them out but they will not go. There
is a bitter feeling here against the conquerors. According to my
Jew acquaintance, Braham ben Gabrail Mazuz, there are a thousand
houses of Jews in Sfax, probably an exaggeration. These are di-
vided in opinion about the French occupation, but most are in favour of
it, as they were badly treated by the. Moors. They are mostly very
poor, the richer ones doing trade as middle men between the Moors
and Franks. Young Braham came on board again to wish me good-
bye, and brought some cake and roast chestnuts and bread for me, but
he could not resist asking me for the fare of the steam launch he had
taken passage in from the shore, and a franc over.
" Our party on board is reduced to the captain, the doctor, and two
cabin passengers, so I have the ship practically to myself. There are
very few European colonists in these parts except the small population
of drink sellers and restaurateurs. The Arabs refuse to sell their good
lands, and the bad are not worth buying, nor has the French Govern-
ment yet found an excuse in rebellion to confiscate these as has been
done in Algeria. The taxes are low, no land tax in coin but the old
tenth of the gross produce and a poll tax of, I think, twenty-five francs
levied on rich and poor. This last presses on the poor and causes dis-
content because in the old time it was not levied in extreme cases of
poverty, whereas now under the French no one is exempt Civilized
governments always commit this injustice in Eastern lands, falsely
pleading immemorial custom.
" Sth Nov. — Arrived by daylight at Gabez, a palm oasis watered by
a small river which rises some five miles inland, they say in several
hundred springs. This feeds the gardens, the rest of the country
being desert. I found a ramshackle carriage with an Arab driver
from Tripoli, who took me round and explained everything. There
are but few Europeans here, some warehouses on the shore but nothing
inland. The native population is Arab, not Berber. Under conduct
of my Tripoli driver I visited the barrage, where there is a run of
water about the size of our Mole at Leatherhead, much overgrown with
reeds and weeds, an oozy unwholesome haunt of frogs and snakes.
Then to the mosque and tomb of Abdul Barber, a pretty place on a
hill, and so round. There was a tame gazelle running in the desert
outside the villages, for there is no town of Gabez. My driver told
me that before the French occupation this was a dangerous neighbour-
hood, as the Bedouins were always marauding. There is a certain
trade here of half a grass, which, they bring from two or three days'
journey inland, worth, my driver said, five francs the camel load.
" We left at noon and arrived at sunset oflF Jerba, a long, low island,
wooded with olives and palms, the water so shallow that our steamer
had to lie six miles from shore, so that we only saw it as an outline
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i62 Tripoli [1894
on the horizon. This they say is Cal)rpso's Island, a dreamy afternoon
place, lying sweltering in a stagnant sea.
" 6th Nov. — Tripoli. A lovely white town with walls and minarets
and an immense growth of palms. Here there is a natural port which
could be improved if the Turkish Government would allow Europeans
a concession to do it, but it wisely refuses, knowing the consequences.
The foreign population consists of some 6,000 or 7,000 Maltese and
Italians. There are many Jews, and a large population of Moslems,
mostly of Arab race, manly and fanatical. The Tripolitans are not
subject to conscription for the Ottoman army, but form a kind of
militia having obtained certain terms of independence when the Sultan
took possession, in return for their support given against the Bey.
" The palm gardens, which extend for ten miles, are wholly in their
hands, and Europeans are discouraged, if not forbidden, from living
outside the town. Beyond the gardens all is a sandy desert, and the
general character of the place is like our own palm district at Sheykh
Obeyd. I called at the British Consulate, and found my old friend
Jago officially there, who sent his son with me in a covered cart
through the palm groves and to the desert beyond. We stopped to
see the Wali's garden, newly reclaimed from the sand. It has all the
feature of our own garden in Egypt, but without the lebbek trees.
He is making a number of such gardens, using the soldiers to do the
labour as is the way in Turkey. Then to a place they call the Hahneh,
which is a bit of high, stony ground kept bare for the purpose
of assemblies and festivities in the centre of the palm gardens.
From it one sees nothing but palm tops all round." [The
palm district here described was the scene in 191 1 of the
abominable atrocities committed by the Italian soldiery when,
in defiance of all right or even pretext, they made their raid on
Tripoli, and massacred the Arabs of the oasis.] *' Then to the Suk
el Jumaa, and the Suk el Thalatha held on the seashore. Here we
found a great concourse of Arabs with camels, horses, asses, and
cows for sale, several thousands of them on the beach. Some had
brought a load of half a, others sheep, others woollen shawls. I bought
a grey and white shawl for fifteen francs, more than their market
value, though really beautifully pieces, like the best Scotch or Irish
homespun, only better. I should say a good trade might be made by
importing these to England.
" After this we went back to a midday meal at the Consulate, a good
old Moorish house, but standing unfortunately in the Maltese quarter,
which is noisy and filthy in the extreme, contrasting with the Moslem
quarters, which are clean, silent and decorous. The Turks keep about
6,000 regular soldiers in Tripoli, but count the native militia at as
many more. They have Mudirs and Kaimakams in the principal
Digitized by
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1894] Malta and Count Strickland 163
towns inland as far as Ghadames, but the policing of the country
district is done by the Arabs. They say these inland districts are fairly
secure for native travellers^ but a great caravan, which started for
Wadai in the far south two years ago with £40,000 worth of goods,
was plundered there by Rabagh Ibn Zebeyr when he attacked Wadai
last year, and none of the merchants have yet returned. This has
caused great lamentation and distress in Tripoli.
"We weighed anchor in the afternoon for Malta, there being no
direct steam communication between Tripoli and Egypt.
" yth November: — We arrived off Malta by daylight, and got inside
the harbor at Valetta by nine o'clock, certainly a splendid place. I
called at once on Count Strickland, to whom Terence had given me a
letter. I was surprised to find him quite a young man, he is thirty-
four, and he reminded me that we had met already at Cambridge, when
he was an undergraduate and one of the chief officials of the Union
and I was down there with John Dillon only seven years ago ; now he has
been for six years secretary to the Malta Government, a post of no
small political importance, he being half a Maltese, through his mother,
a Countess della Catena, and having married De la Warr's eldest
daughter, Lady Edeline Sackville. I found him very busy preparing
for a debate on the estimates in the Maltese Legislative Council, an
annual event, the principal political one of the year.
" The Council was to meet at half-past two, and he took me there
with him to attend the debate, an interesting display. The Governor,
Sir Arthur Freemantle, was in the chair, the six official members to
his left, the fourteen elected members to his right, three or four benches
at the end of the chamber being for the public. I was given an arm-
chair behind the Governor's. The Council Chamber is a splendid room,
and the ceremonial was dignified, but with a certain air of unreality
as in a debating club, though it was an important occasion, for politics
are running high in Malta just now. The leader of the opposition,
Savona, is a man of about fifty, keen-eyed, alert, professional, remind-
ing me a little of Freycinet. He knows English well, and made his
attacks sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, for both languages
are used optionally, the more animated speeches being in Italian.
There seemed to be a very full liberty of speech, but no applause or
dissent of the kind that makes our House of Commons a babel. To
me it was most interesting, as the questions treated turned on Consti-
tutional right, and were dealt with ably and with passion. Savona on
some previous occasion had been taunted by an official member with
having allowed the Estimates to pass untouched, and he was determined
now to reduce this year's on certain points in protest against an in-
fringement made three years before by an order of the Colonial Gov-
ernment of the Maltese Constitution. Elected members had been de-
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i64 The Maltese Parliament [1894
prived of their right to become members of the Executive. Strick-
land replied in an able, debating speech, but without, as I thought, hav-
ing the better argument, or commanding the sense of the Council.
One of Savona's proposed reductions was of £io for the repainting of
the Government barge, and this he made fun of. He found, however,
support on the point in one of the elected members, Mozu, and Savona
lost the amendment, though he carried another reducing the vote by
£266 in regard to other items. Freemantle then retired, and a rather
noisy discussion followed about his successor in the chair, during
which, as it was late, I too went out. On the whole I was pleased with
the debate, which was ably conducted by the opposition, there being
but one very foolish speaker, a deaf old man, who talked nonsense about
* poveri Maltesi in and out of season. There was certainly more reality
in it than in the Viceregal Council meetings I attended at Calcutta, and
must do good as putting a check on the Government's autocratic
vagaries, if nothing more.
" Dined with young Sitwell of the Rifles at the Club, and was glad
to find him talking sensibly about the exclusion of the Maltese nobility
from its membership. This is a notorious scandal and cause of ill-
feeling. Looking through the Club list I can find no more than two
Maltese names among the English ones, Strickland's and Dingli's. The
tone of English society here, Sitwell tells me, is violent about the Mal-
tese and absurd. He and his raiment are off next week for Bombay,
where he will find race arrogance more violent still.
" 8^A Nov. — Drove across the island through a series of lovely vil-
lages, all of hewn stone, to Hajar Kim, where there is an ancient
temple of the Druidical kind, then with Strickland to his country house,
on the way to Citta Vecchia, a fine villa of the beginning of last
century, with courts and fountains and an orange garden. This he
inherits from his mother. He tells me there are about twelve families
in the island which enjoy a majorat, his being one, in the rest property
has been divided among all the children, and so has disappeared. This
dates from the time of the knights. When the island was given to the
Knights of St. John in 1530 by Charles V a proviso was made that it
should revert to the Crown ; consequently, when the English first occu-
pied Malta it was in the name of the King of Naples that they did so.
The French knights had betrayed the island to Bonaparte, who took
possession of it as part of the French Republic, ill-treated the inhabi-
tants, robbed the churches, and speedily made the French detested.
The Maltese rose against them and invested the fortress for eighteen
months and forced a capitulation which the French made, not to
them but to Nelson — the annexation to England was an after-
thought
'' Strickland explained Savona's attitude of opposition as one caused
Digitized by
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1894] Savona the Nationalist Leader 165
by disappointment. Savona began life as a soldier in the hospital
corps, but having learned English he bought his discharge, set up a
school and newspaper, and attacked the Government. He was then
taken in the Government to keep him quiet, but left it when the Con-
stitution of 1887 * was granted, he having opposed it and recorded in
a minute his view that Malta should be governed as a Crown Colony
of a severe type. This minute was thrown in his teeth when he
seceded from the Government and set up as its violent antagonist.
Strickland, of course, is officially prejudiced against him, and will not
see in him any patriotic motive, but. he admits that public opinion
generally is anti-English among the educated Maltese, while the coun-
try people are indifferent. Savona, he assures me, is losing his popu-
larity, but he, Strickland, is tired of the worry and would be glad to
change his chief secretaryship for a Colonial appointment. I find him
clever and interesting.
" gth Nov.— Left Malta for Egypt via Brindisi."
The winter that followed that year and the following spring in
Egypt was one that has left me few political records, the new National
movement headed the last two years by the Khedive Abbas having lost
its first impulse through the reasons I have already described, and I
stood aside busying myself with other things, and beyond a single
visit to the Khedive at Abdin Pklace, my diary contains little worth
transcribing. I arrived at Sheykh Obeyd on 15th Nov. and found
Anne and Judith already there, and on the 21st Fen wick Pasha, who
for the last two years has been English adviser at the Home Office and
head of the police, called on me. He had, compared with most Eng-
lishmen, been favourable to native self-government, and under the new
rigime had become out of favour :
"Fenwick leaves Eg3rpt immediately to join his regiment in India.
He spoke strongly and rather bitterly of the recent change in the ad-
ministration which has put the police once more under the Mudirs,
and thinks it quite uncompensated by the appointment of Gorst as
English Adviser at the Ministry of the Interior. He thinks Cromer
may have yielded the point from a Macchiavellian motive of allowing
the native Government to make mistakes of which he will profit later,
but I do not think this.
"29/fc Nov, — To-day being the Khedive's birthday and a whole
holiday, Tigrane Pasha came to see us; he is down on his luck politi-
^ Malta had been granted a Constitution of very restricted type by the Eng-
lish Government in 1887, avowedly as an experiment, with the result that many
abuses in the government of the island were remedied; but a strong movement
having been set on foot by the native Maltese for union with the Italian king-
dom the Constitution was subsequently withdrawn.
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i66 Again in Egypt [1894
cally and looks at things as going badly, regarding Gorst's appointment
to the Ministry of the Interior as a new encroachment.
" 30/A Nov, — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu to lunch with us. He tells
me the Khedive's ideas are unchanged since last year, that he is still
bitter against Cromer and the Occupation, that his visit to England
was prevented last summer by the Sultan, and much else. The Khe-
dive is very kind to him, Abdu, now, and gave him a private audience
of thirty-five minutes, and he has obtained his long-wished for grant
of £2,000 a year for the Azhar University. A committee is to be
appointed to see to the spending of the sum. We talked over old
events and he gave me again the history of the Mufettish Ismail Sadyk's
murder by Ishak'Bey on board the Khedive's steamer. Ishak strangled
him with his own hands. He says this was certainly done on the river,
immediately after Ismail Sadyk's arrest by the Khedive Ismail
opposite the Jesireh palace. He told us the story of Ali Pasha Sherif's
slavery adventure. Ali Pasha Sherif had been recently arrested by
our people on a charge of slave dealing, he being the oldest and most
respectable personage perhaps in Egypt, and President of the Legisla-
tive Council. The Pasha had behaved very foolishly, Abdu said,
' like a child.' The truth was he is in his dotage and has become
foolishly attached to a woman on whom he spends his time and money,
and it was for her that he had bought the slaves, and he told us also
of Nubar's moneymaking schemes now he is in office, and of other
scandals that have taken place during the summer.
"5th Dec. — Had luncheon with Riaz. He tells me the Khedive's
politics have not changed at all since last year. He (Abbas) hates
Nubar, and is sorry now, * poor young man,' for the mistake he made
in allowing Cromer to change his Ministry. He would have gone
to England in the summer, but was prevented by a French intrigue
acting on the Sultan. He lamented the usurpation of new authority
by Lord Cromer in the Ministry of the Interior, etc., etc.
" loth Dec, — Saw the Khedive at Abdin Palace. He received me
cordially, even affectionately, and on my congratulating him on a
domestic event expected in his family, and which had been announced,
said : ' Yes, it came upon us quite as a surprise. Now I shall marry
her. I wished to do so once, but when I consulted our religious au-
thorities they told me I must wait till the child was bom. But I will
marry her the very day afterwards, this is according to rule.' I said :
* There was no pleasure in life like that of being a father, and hoped
that his son would be a blessing to him.' He is evidently in the high-
est delight. Then he talked of his journey to Europe, and thanked
me for my letter about the Prince of Wales. ' I should have liked to
go to England,' he said, ' but was prevented at Constantinople. It is
impossible to do anything with him (meaning the Sultan). Will you
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[i894 A Talk with the Khedive 167
believe it, I was twenty days at Constantinople, and was watched all
the time by spies. He gave me two of his aides-de-camp, who were
constantly with me, even sleeping in my palace at night. Not once did
he discuss any political subject with me, though I several times brought
them forward when we were alone. Each time I did so he jumped
up and shut the windows, lest we should be overheard, but I could
get nothing from him. Even Mukhtar, who was there three months,
got no more than a lecture for not preventing the Cairo newspapers
from writing against him. He told Mukhtar to spend money — he
might pay each newspaper £1,500 a year — but Mukhtar refused to
have anything to do with it. Mukhtar will never be Grand Vizier.
All who serve the 'Sultan are expected to bow to the ground and say,
" Certainly, your Majesty." We shall never come to any good with him
for our Caliph and Emir el Mumenin.'
Abbas asked me if I had had any news of a new revolt in Arabia, and
I told him I had seen paragraphs in the papers about it, but attached
little importance to them, as such paragraphs always appeared when
diplomatic pressure was being put at Constantinople, and just now the
Armenian question was being pushed forward. The new friendship
between England and Russia boded no good for the Ottoman Empire.
He said : ' I have information that an agreement has been come to
between them by which Russia is to occupy Armenia.* This seems most
improbable, and with it the abandonment of Cyprus by us, as we could
not consent to it without retiring from the Cyprus Convention, which
guarantees the integrity of the Sultan's territory in Asia. As to his
visit to England he said: 'The King of the Belgians invited me to
stay with him, and I asked permission at Constantinople, but was told
I should make pretext -to decline, and avoid all visits.' He is evi-
dently disgusted with the Sultan's timidity and narrow-mindedness,
but I noticed that he never once mentioned him by name, only as He.
" From this we went on to home matters, and the way in which
Nubar's hand had been forced in the matter of the new arrangement
at the Ministry of the Interior. Nubar was old and stupid, he said,
and had been made to appear to demand it. I am inclined, however,
to suspect that this was merely Nubar's way of excusing himself
to his master. About the slave-trading case brought against AH Pasha
Sherif , the Khedive told me that it was without doubt a trap laid for
him by Shaffer and the Slave Trade Bureau. Dr. Shafai was an ac-
complice, and the three slave women had been taught their parts.
When Shafai was condemned to hard labour he was not really sent
to Toura prison, but kept for a month at the caracol in comfortable
rooms upstairs. He, the Khedive, had been asked to pardon him, but
had said the law must take its course. Then they sent him to Toura,
but made him second doctor there. It was all a political intrigue to
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i68 Convent of St. Anthony [1895
discredit Ali Pasha and frighten the Legislative Council. He com-
plained of the timidity and lack of fibre in the native Egyptian members
of the Council. 'Look/ he said, 'at Heshmet Pasha, we all looked
upon him as a Nationalist and a Riazist, yet directly the trouble came
last year he went round at once.' It now being twelve o'clock, after
a little talk about Tunis, the Khedive got up and, taking my hand with
both his, thanked me and said he knew I was one he could depend on,
and who had the welfare of Islam at heart. I am more struck
than ever at the frankness of his character and the clearness of his
ideas."
The first three months of the New Year, 1895, were devoted by us
almost entirely to desert travelling, when we explored the hill country
that lies between the Nile and the Red Sea, a piece of desert land almost
entirely unknown to Europeans, or indeed to the townspeople of Cairo
and the fellahin of the Delta, and as yet unmapped, to me a great addi-
tional charm, and except for a few scattered Bedouins quite unin-
habited. We had on this occasion my cousin Mary Elcho with us, who
was spending the winter in Egypt, and we pushed our explorations as
far as the Red Sea, and followed the coast line down it between the
high mountain range of Kalala and the Gulf of Suez, a narrow strip
of sandy shore seldom or never visited, there being barely room in
places for camels to pass, a rugged shore, where the only sign of hu-
manity is the occasional apparition of a distant ocean steamer far away
on its road to India or Japan, and at the water's edge a continuous
jetsam of empty brandy and rum bottles cast up by the waves, and
marking the unholy track of Western civilization. The whole of the
precipitous Kalala chain, which runs in places to a height of four and
five thousand feet, was in the ancient days before Islam the scattered
abode of those early Christian hermits who were so picturesque a fea-
ture of the fourth and fifth centuries, and may still, some of them, be
identified as former hermitages by the possession of a trickle of water
and a palm or two still growing wild, and one monastery, still inhabited,
the convent of St. Anthony. It lies in one of the ruggedest and most
desolate places in the world, difficult of access for camels, and parted
from the Nile Valley by eighty miles of inhospitable desert, and
twenty from the seashore on the other side. In all that journey we
had met with no inhabitant after our first day's march, and it was with
some difficulty that we made out our road to it, for the Bedouins with us
had never been there, and we only had knowledge of it by the vaguest
hearsay. The convent is hardly ever visited by Europeans, and ours
was absolutely the first occasion on which women had been admitted
within the Monastery walls since its foundation some 1,500 years ago.
All this was intensely interesting, but descriptions of desert journeys
lie outside the scope of my present memoirs. It is only here and there
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that in the interval of these expeditions I find a notice of public events,
as for instance :
" 2$th Feb. — The long expected Egyptian crisis seems at last ap-
proaching in Europe, if one may judge by the foreign newspapers
which are threshing the question of the English Occupation once more
out. I fancy Rosebery's escapade with the Congo Company has set up
the German Emperor's back, and he is encouraging the French to push
us out of Eg3^t. In spite of our swagger, and it is past all bounds,
we shall have one day to go. Our papers repeat the bravado that a
great nation like England does not yield to threats. My experience
is that it is to threats ohly of very immediate chastisement that the
British public does yield. Soft words never have effect with us."
About the same time the announcement reached me of poor Ran-
dolph's death, and on the 30th of March of Princess Helene's engage-
ment to the Duke of Aosta, and lastly on the nth of April of the
huge scandal in London of Oscar Wilde's arrest and prosecution. Of
political events in Egypt there is no further record worth transcribing.
The 27th of April saw us back at Crabbet.
This year I saw more than ever of George Wyndham, and spent
much of my time with him. He was at the height just then of his
literary activity, having become editor of the " New Review," and be-
ing pushed forward by Henley as a writer, and at his instigation, and
Henley's, my thoughts took a more decidedly literary direction than
before. He proposed that I should write for him on Arabian subjects,
and this I, being full just then of desert memories, willingly agreed to.
" I2th May. — Henley proposes to bring out a selected edition of
my poems under his auspices, and promises to run me into a more
public place as poet than what I now occupy. I am not particularly
anxious for this, but he and George may try. George is a good en-
thusiastic friend, and very dear to me. He has given me a touching
description of Pembroke's funeral, at which he was present in the
little churchyard near Wilton, where they buried him; the Wilton
gardens in their full Spring splendour, the birds singing their hearts
out, and many men, the most distinguished in the land, in tears. Pem-
broke lived a noble, if an unproductive, life, a man of large S)rmpathies
and high ideals, but no fixed beliefs, and no results in action. He had
at one time an opening in politics which might have led him to any
sublimity when Disraeli gave him a place in his Government at the
age of twenty-four, but his health was not sufficient for the strain, and
he could not go on with it. The rest of his life was spent at Wilton,
a paradise on earth, the possession of which I have always thought
hinders its possessors, by its beauty, from engaging in the world's am-
bitions. He lived honoured and beloved by women and by men.
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170 Death of Frederick Locker [1895
"Sir Robert Ped, too, is dead. I met him on Friday at the St.
James' Club and had a talk with him about Japan and China. His
death was sudden in the night. He was not a wise man, but interest-
ing, a very good speaker, full of bonhomie and sometimes of wit.
" 29/fc Afay. — My poor Locker is dead, not other than a worthy end-
ing to a happy life. His last day was a cheerful one they all say, and
he talked more strongly than for some time past. I had called in
the evening at Rowfant and had seen him, and was there till seven,
and then took his son Godfrey back riding with me, so that he must
have died very shortly afterwards, for the announcement is in the
* Times ' this morning.
"Later, I called again at Rowfant and found to my surprise the
family not in mourning. My friend, instead of being dead, is a trifle
better, and talks of outliving some of us. It is a mystery how the
thing got into the * Times,' from which it had been copied into all the
evening papers with long obituary notices. [It was not till two days
later that he died at the age of seventy- four.]
"22nd June. — Yesterday when I was in London I called at half-
past five on Margot, who is invalided. While we were talking Sir
William Harcourt came in, and their talk turned at once to politics,
the Cromwell statue debate, and other interests of the moment, but
nothing presaged what at that very hour was happening in the House,
namely, the defeat of the Ministry on St. John Broderick's amendment
in Supply. Poor Margot, as it happened, was in some measure respon-
sible for the Government minority, for as I left her a little after six
I found yet another visitor, John Morley, at her door, and she kept
him so late giving him good advice that he missed the division!
To-day I see the account of it in the papers.
" 24ih June, — Rosebery has resigned, a feeble statesman though a
clever man, whom we shall never, I fancy, see Prime Minister again.
It seems there is to be a coalition between Lord Salisbury and the
Duke of Devonshire, under Lord Salisbury's leadership. I am glad
the imposture of Whig Liberalism is defunct.
" Yesterday was my last day at Crabbet, for Crabbet is let for three
years, perhaps for four, and we take up our abode at Newbuildings
to-morrow. We have no need, with so small a family as ours is, of
so large a house, and Newbuildings is enough for all our wants, and
I am in a mood to loathe old things and pine for new; nevertheless,
it was a melancholy day for me in spite of the brave sun.
" 2$th June, — The day of Princess Helene's wedding to the Duke
of Aosta. The Comtesse de Paris had sent us an invitation, and I drove
down to Kingston with Judith, where the wedding was, and then to
Orleans House at Twickenham. It was a day of heaven, a brilliant
blue sky with a light north wind tQ freshen the sun's heat. Judith, of
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iSqsI Princess Hiline's Wedding 171
course, was late at starting, and so we arrived too late to get inside
the church, and the bride and bridegroom were already coming out
in procession. The Duke is imder-sized, of extremely dusky hue,
his features good, but not imposing. Behind them came her brother,
the Duke of Orleans, his broken leg still disabling him, and a little
after the Prince and Princess of Wales with their daughters, and the
Dukes of Coburg and Connaught, Tecks, Fifes, and a number of for-
eign Princes and Princesses. In the crowd of invited persons there
were many French and a few Italians. There were hardly any English.
Indeed, all the English I saw were not a dozen. Leighton was there
and Lady Burdett Coutts, and a few men connected with the Court,
but almost no one belonging to general society. Nor were there any
Epglish presents, which is strange, but though living so long in Eng-
land, they hardly knew any English people. Then we all got into our
carriages and drove in procession through Kingston and Twickenham,
a really pretty sight, with multitudes of flags and large crowds cheer-
ing and every window filled in the old-fashioned houses. There was
something Hogarthian in it all. In Orleans House tables were laid
for the royal personages and Ambassadors, but we, the less dis-
tinguished, had to be content with what we could scramble for at
buffets. Then we went into the garden where the bride and bride-
groom were making their round of congratulations, and I had the privi-
lege with others of kissing the bride's royal hand. My wedding pres-
ent of the Kelmscott poems was laid out with the rest. Sweet
personage, may she be happy !
" 26/A June. — Called on Lady Lytton. She has just been appointed
Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen in the Duchess of Roxborough's
place, and she showed me Her Majesty's autograph letter, which was
very kindly and even touchingly worded, saying she admired the way
she had borne her troubles, recalling Lytton's good services, and in
a postscript saying she was glad of Victor's recovery from his recent
illness. Certainly the old Queen has the power of conveying her
meaning in a few simple, not to say commonplace, words so as to
give the impression of a true feeling, more than most women. It
affected me to read the letter, I hardly know why.
"29^A /wn^.— Called on Harry Cust at the 'Pall Mall Gazette'
Office. He is much improved since last year and takes his editorship
seriously. He told me that when he began with the * Pall Mall Ga-
zette' he had a promise of office as soon as the Tories should come
into power, but that is now all swept away.
" Then to Newbuildings, where I joined Anne, and we took formal
possession. It pleases me much to be there, for it is far more of a
hermitage than Crabbet was, and one can forget here the worries of
the world.
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172 A Modem Funeral 1895]
" 6th July. — Called on Betty Balfour, whom I found in high spirits
at the appointment of her husband as Chief Secretary in Ireland.
Gerald is a very able fellow and will doubtless do well on his brother's
lines, and I had some talk with him about his prospects there.
** nth July. — Pamela's wedding to Eddy Tennant, and afterwards
with Judith to a dance at Sibell Grosvenor's in honour of it George
(Wyndham) was in delightful vein and supped with Judith and me,
entertaining us with his Epicurean views of life. * What we want in
modem life,' he said, 'is to have more feasting, song, and flowers,
and noise, and to sit long and late with beautiful ladies, ourselves
crowned with wreaths.' Certainly his own entertainment, the first he
has ever given, was perfection. He has just been returned for Dover
unopposed, the first member of the new Parliament. His is a happy
nature.
" 15th July. — To my Aunt Caroline Chandler's funeral at Witley,
driving there and back from Newbuildings, a full forty-five miles
through the oak country of the Weald — an almost entirely uninhab-
ited district. Witley village, with the exception of some half-dozen
new cottages, is unchanged from what I remembered it as a boy or for
that matter from what my mother knew it, as her drawings of it
show thirty years earlier. Only the church is changed, the inside
having undergone the modem rage of decoration. The funeral was
a shock to me, as it was conducted with cheerful music and a merry
peal of bells, which seemed to be absurd. The old English services
are all made ridiculous now with pseudo-catholic * mummeries.' They
have lost their dignity of old days, but it is of a piece with the whole
English character, which has changed from top to bottom in my short
fifty years of recollection. Here was my poor old aunt, who, when
she came to Witley first as a pretty bride in 1845, was wedded soberly
and in all decomm, now in 1895 ^i^ ^^c age of seventy-two launched,
into a grave piled up with flowers like a birthday cake, to the merriest
strains of the organ, strains to which we might with no impropriety
have danced. The only old-fashioned thing in the ceremony was that
her son's widow, who inherits the property, fainted and was carried
out.
" igth July. — Lunched with Lady Galloway. There has been a
regular rout of the Liberals at the Elections. Harcourt, John Morley,
Lefevre, Arnold Morley among the slain. Much talk of all this. As-
quith has won or kept his seat.
" i^th Aug. — A visit from one Oppenheim, a Jew, who has been
travelling in Mesopotamia, and wants to go to Nejd. [This Op-
penheim was afterwards an agent of the German Government attached
to the German Legation in Cairo, much concerned in his Government's
intrigues there.]
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1895]' George Curzon Undet Secretary 173
" isth Aug,— Lunched with George Curzon at 5, Carlton House
Terrace, which he has rented. We talked of things political, and of
his own new position in the Government as Under-Secretary for For-
eign Affairs. He prefers this to a minor place without power in the
Cabinet. About Armenia, in spite of the brave words in the Queen's
speech to-day, he agrees with me that they can do nothing. Russia, he
says, will never consent to an Armenian buffer State, even if there
were the materials to make one, and how can we put pressure on the
Sultan ? In truth it is impossible, and the sooner they drop it the bet-
ter, which I fancy they will do. He told me all the same that the
horrors were not exaggerated. I told him of Knowles wanting an
article of me about Egypt. This he deprecated in due Parliamentary
phrase. It was embarrassing the Government and defeating its own
end. It would be better to wait a little till the Government had had
time to look about it, and the rest which are the common excuses of
Under Secretaries. He said that he himself was entirely opposed to
evacuation, or change of any kind, that the French were out of court by
their having refused the ratification of the Wolff Convention, and that
he considered Lord Salisbury would be most unwilling to re-open the
question, though as yet Lord Salisbury had said nothing to him on the
subject, the matter was not pressing. The Government did not believe
the rumours of any joint French and Russian action about Egypt. All
this after luncheon.
" Then to Merton to see the new tapestry, Botticelli's Spring, which
Morris is making for me there, and on to Coombe where I dined with
Bertram and Laurence Currie, Bertram ftdl of old and interesting
reminiscences.
"25*A Aug. — A visit to Cromer, Newhaven Court, the Lockers'
house.
" Francis Palgrave was here in the afternoon, an interesting man,
garrulous, but in a good sense of the word, telling stories, principally
of Tennyson, reminiscences of whom he is writing. He talked to me
about his brother Gifford (the Arabian traveller), and told me that
in the last three years of his life he was reconciled to the Church, and
that this *had made him much happier and more contented. I asked
him how matters had been arranged about the wife and children, seeing
that Gifford was a priest and had been a Jesuit. He said his brother
had told him that no difficulty had been made, such cases having of
course often happened before. He was allowed to continue his domes-
tic life, only not conjugally ; that Gifford had told him laughing was no
great privation. He was glad to hear me corroborate the accuracy
of his brother's account of the |X)litics of Nejd and its social condition.
He was anxious I should believe Gifford was never really, or ostensibly
a Moslem.
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174 Leaving England [1895
" Miss Kate Greenaway is also staying in the house.
" 26th Aug. — I have come to Ockham for a night, where all is much
improved since Ralph came into his inheritance. Miss Lawless, the
novelist, is staying here, a well-informed, clever woman, and a good
talker."
On 8th September I left England once more for abroad.
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CHAPTER IX
POLAND AND ARMENIA
I left Newbuildings on the 5th, Anne coming up to London to see
the last of me (for I was going abroad alone), and as my first stage to
Gros Bois.
"Sth Sept. — Gros Bois. We are much occupied here with a new
catalogue Wagram is having made of the family papers. Many .of
them are most interesting. Wagram's ancestor, the father of Marshal
Berthier, seems to have performed on a certain occasion some small
service at Versailles — he was in a very subordinate position — help-
ing to put out a fire in the stables and also designing a star and baton
for the Marshals of France, and for these was ennobled by Louis XV.
The son was therefore not quite a parvenu when Bonaparte attached
him to his fortunes. He eventually became 'Due de Neuchatel et
Valangin, par la grace de Dieu et Tacte imperial de Napoleon I, Em-
pereur des Fran^ais * (such is the inscription over one of the doors of
Gros Bois) and was at one time possessor of Chambord. He died
while Napoleon was at Elba, and so avoided the final dSbdcle. But
the Marshal's son signed an act of renunciation of the Duchy of
Neuchatel, and restored Chambord to its royal owners, since when
the descendants have remained Princes of Wagram at Gros Bois, a far
more enjoyable if less splendid possession. M. Jusserand was here
last night, and we looked through these papers together, with Duphot
the young man who is making the catalogue.
" Jusserand is a very small dark man, with large head of the brachi-
cephalic type — left at the present moment in charge of the Foreign
Office, his superiors being away aux eaux — a clever talker, and, I
should say, a very able official as well as literary man. He was
Chauvinist enough to show emotion when reading the original of the
capitulation of Ulm signed by Mack, and later the document signed
by Ney and others, settling the line of military demarcation in France
with the Allies. There are among the documents some interesting let-
ters from Napoleon and one from Marie Louise signed ' Louise.*
" Another interesting man here yesterday was Ludovic Halcvy, who
gave us reminiscences of the Second Empire when he was Clerk in the
Chamber of Deputies, and acted in some sort as temporary Secretary
to Momy. His reading of the Empire is that which all who were much
ITS
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176 Ludovic Halevy [1895
behind the scenes have long known to be the trae one, and which His-
tory will adopt — namely, that Napoleon III was not by blood really
a Bonaparte, and as little by character, a phlegmatic, good-natured
man, fond of ease and fond of women, with a certain superstitious be-
lief in his star, and ambitious less by natural taste than by position.
Momy, his half brother, was at the beginning his guiding spirit, but
was ousted from favour by the Empress several years before his death
in 1865. The Empress Eugenie was without doubt the cause of Napo-
leon IIFs latest misfortunes. A beautiful woman and of good family
in Spain, she was all the same an adventuress, and had had more than
one lover besides the Duke of Sesto, whom she loved before she came
to Paris. The Emperor only married her because she was clever enough
to refuse him on other terms. She led him an unquiet life, making
him constant domestic scenes, from which he fled to Marguerite
Bellanger, at whose apartment he was free from worries. (Marguerite
Bellanger was, if I remember rightly, the daughter of Bellanger, who
kept Voisin's restaurant, and, when I was at Paris, a professional lady
of pleasure.)
" Halevy recounted an incident of which he was 'witness when
Momy, coming back from the Conseil des Ministres, threw down his
portfolio in a rage, and swore he would never go again while the Em-
press was allowed to talk nonsense there. ' L'Empereur fera la guerre,'
he exclaimed, 'un de ces jours pour lui eviter une scene de famille,*
and this was precisely the thing that happened. At the time of the
quarrel with Prussia in 1870, she had come suddenly to the Council
Chamber and dismissed the Ministers in her husband's absence, say-
ing : * Messieurs, il y a conge aujourd'hui. Nous sommes en fete. La
guerre est declaree.' Halevy is a capital talker — I should imagine of
Hebrew origin, judging by his profile and other signs — a neighbour
of the Prince's here at Gros Bois, and intimate, too, with the Alphonse
Rothschilds. His son, a most interesting young man of the serious
student kind one reads of in French novels but so seldom meets, was
here on Friday — an abler man, I should say, even than his father.
Poor Mme. Alphonse was also here — it being Berthe's wedding-day
— a sad woman, mourning her lost beauty and trying to be gay. There
was, of course, much talk of the attempts made against Alphonse by
the anarchists. He goes about guarded everywhere by detectives. All
complained of the lack of government in France, and all blamed the
Parliamentary rigime,
" i2th Sept, — Antonin. I passed through Paris on Sunday after-
noon (the 8th) on my way to the Potockis here in Poland, and spent
a couple of hours at the Embassy, or rather in the Embassy garden, to
which Lord Dufferin invited me. I had an hour alone in it, sitting at
the farther end, near the grille — in some sort a sacred spot for me.
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i89S] Our Lord Mayor at Paris Vfj
Then Dufferin came to fetch me, and took me oflf to Lady Duflferin,
who was holding court for the Lord Mayor of London on the lawn,
all sitting on gilded arm-chairs on a red carpet — the Lord Mayor, Sir
Francis Reinalls, a ridiculous, pompous little man, who has come over
to Paris to make a splash, bringing his gilt coach and four horses with
him. Dufferin tells me that at the Elysee Reinalls took upon himself
to compliment the President on his royal bearing, and to invite him to
stay with him at the Mansion House. He seems to have made a fool
of himself all round. He told me himself that he had been to the
Theatre Frangais, and had been so bored that he had gone away to a
Cafe Chantant, and I see the French papers have got hold of the story,
while the English ones contain a protest that he has no commission at
all to represent the City of London in Paris.
" Dufferin was very kind and pleasant, as he always is to me, and
showed me his books. Among them was a volume of Gregory's Mefti-
oirs, and he fired up when I noticed it, repudiating with great indigna-
tion the story told there of his aunt, Mrs. Norton, having sold the in-
formation of Peel's change on the Com Law question to the * Times.'
He assured me it was entirely false, as he had traced the truth to Peel
himself, who desired to clinch the matter. He considered it a cruel
libel on his virtuous aunt. But Dufferin is touching in his family
fidelity.
"At 6.30 I took train for Vienna, arriving there the night of 9th
September. Stayed at Sacher's Hotel, a very excellent inn, and on
the morning of the loth, after calling on Harrington and Clarke at the
Embassy, and getting my passport from them, I again took train, and
so through the following night and the morning of yesterday, arriving
at length somewhat tired and very dirty at Czerny Ostrov, my final
station. At the frontier, Voloschitzka, I had some difficulty about my
passport, of which the Russian authorities seemed suspicious, but with
the help of Count Bielski, a young Pole whom I had met in the train,
got through. At Czerny Ostrov a carriage and four was waiting, and
I was driven rapidly to Antonin, the last half of the road in Countess
Joseph Potocka's four-in-hand of four dark bay Arab mares, very
beautiful ones and beautifully matched, going a great pace. The roads
were good, there having been no rain for long, and we did the distance
of twenty-two miles in about two hours.
" To-day I have been shown the stud. The Arab portion of it is,
I am sorry to say, in a lamentable condition compared with what it was
eleven years ago when I saw it last. The reason is the want of proper
stallions. For one reason or another Potocki has been unable to pro-
cure a really first class one, and the horse, ' Euclid,' which he bought
in India of Lord William Beresford for, I believe, 500 guineas, ha^
proved an absolute failure at the stud. His stock are coarse, without
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beauty or action, and are worse than the worst we have ever bred at
Crabbet. They have not even the merit, if it is one, of exceptional size.
Of the six stallions he showed me there was but one preserving the
Arab type, a dark chestnut with four white legs, ' Iflah,' a four-year-old
with nice action, bred by a horse he had from the Babolna stud called
* Zarif ,* out of a fine old mare, * Khanjar.' The rest were not worth
looking at. 'Euclid' himself, who has been re-chistened 'Obeyan,'
is a horse not unlike ' Kars,' with a fine fore-hand and good points, too,
in the quarter, but with a plain head (Kars had a fine one) of the con-
vex type, and lacking distinction all through. It is only another proof
of the mistake of breeding from a winner of races if you want to get
handsome Arab stock. The fastest horses are, I believe, never, among
Arabians, the best sires. The mares, which we looked over in the
afternoon, are far better and deserve a better sire. There are a dozen
really good ones — the rest inferior — but the dozen are enough to
refound the stud, though several of the best are old. I regret im-
mensely having sold ' Shahwan ' to America, as he would have been
well employed here, and, except * Ahmar,' whom I cannot well spare,
I have nothing old enough left to give. The mares I admired most
were * Druha ' and her daughter ' Nerissa,' ' Zalotna,' ' Luba,' ' Khiva,'
* Poppeia,' and * Khalifa,' the dam of * Iflah.' But most of them had
unworthy foals to foot by ' Euclid.' On the whole it was a disappoint-
ing spectacle, and I spoke frankly to Potocki, or at least as frankly as
it is possible to speak in such cases. I found him well aware of
' Euclid's ' failure. Then Countess Potocka drove me round the oak
wood and through the grounds, which have been newly laid out and
very well.
" i^th Sept, — I have had much interesting talk with Potocki about
Polish history, and the great part played in it by his ancestors, who
were many of them military leaders. His cousins, the Sangusckos,
were independent princes in Lithuania 400 years ago ; and these lands at
Antonin and Schepetowka lay on the high road — it is still called the
'black road' — of the Tartar invasions as late as 150 years ago. To
come to later times, he talked of the famous Princess Czartoriska, his
great-grandmother, who was the beloved of Lauzun, and he has given
me Maugras' book to read, which has just come out. It is founded on
Lauzun's memoirs, which Potocki assures me are authentic, and the
original of which, privately printed, he has had in his hands. I asked
him why Maugras, instead of giving a Bowdlerised rechauffi of it, had
not quoted the original, and he said it entered into quite impossible
details, unfit for publication. I would give a great deal to read the
original as it stands, for nothing strikes me more strongly than the
identity of the highly cultivated society of our day in London with
that of Versailles then. Not, I think, that we are so corrupt in money
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1895] Bulgarian Politics 179
mattei^, or perhaps quite so open in our love affairs, but still the human
nature of it is identical, and the peculiarity of the co-existence of much
high ideality in principle with passionate love-making in practice.
" There is much cholera going on in the villages round here. Po-
tocki showed me a village to-day where 100 persons have died, a local
outbreak, almost confined to the province of Volh3mia.
" 14th Sept — Spent the day seeing Prince Sanguscko's stud at
Qiristowka, a really magnificent collection of mares, no English or other
than Arab blood having been admitted. The flea-bitten greys were
some of them quite wonderful. There is, however, a great lack of
promising young stallions, the stallions in stud use being away at
Slavuta. Christowka is 20 versts — 16 miles — from Antonin across
the black earth of the steppe, now all under cultivation — the few vil-
lages much swept by cholera. Christowka itself has lost 160 persons.
" We were received by the manager and his Viennese wife, a young
bourgeoise who insisted on entertaining us. The Antonin Director,
who was with me, is an intelligent man, a Pole from near Riga, and
had been for several years in the service of the Bulgarian Government.
On the way home he gave me a long and clear account of Bulgarian
politics. According to him (his name is Cherkowski) Prince Alex-
ander of Battenburg, with his many talents, was too young for the posi-
tion he was given, and made many mistakes. The Russians — though
as a Pole he had no desire to praise them — were really governing the
country well. Their administration was excellent, and they had carried
out in Bulgaria the reforms they only talk of in Russia, the finance be-
ing especially good. It has gone down rapidly since their departure.
Prince Alexander was sustained by Austrian and English help. Prince
Ferdinand he likes better. He, Ferdinand, is a quiet man, much ad-
dicted to science, especially botany. He would never have thought of
accepting a throne but for his mother. Ferdinand is incapable, Cher-
kowski says, of having been concerned in Stambuloff's assassination,
though Stambuloff treated him with great arrogance. Stambuloff's
death was in all probability a private vengeance. He was a man of
the most corrupt life, taking advantage of his ofiicial position to get
women into his power, any who came or whose husbands came to him
with petitions. He had violated many women, notoriously a certain
singer who was engaged to be married, he and the chief of the police
between them. The woman committed suicide on account of it. He
was hated for these crimes, and they were probably the reason of his
end. He, Cherkowski, was at the head there of the veterinary depart-
ment. The Bulgarian Government had required of him to become
naturalized, but he had refused, so left their service to enter that of
Potocki. The Bulgarians were a clever people with much outward
polish, but quite corrupt. They disliked all foreigners, but perhaps
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i8o To Kiev with Potocki [1895
Russians less than the rest. He does not believe that Russia will
succeed in recovering her lost position in the country."
Slavuta and its stud have acquired a tragic notoriety since this entry
was written, having been the scene of one of those hideous outrages
which distinguished the Bolshevik revolution of 19 17. Prince Sang-
uscko, the owner of the stud, was in his country house at Slavuta, when
a number of disbanded soldiers recently returned from the Russian
army broke into his house and took him out of it and brutally ill-
treated him, killing him at last with their bayonets, and then pillaging
the chateau and destroying the whole of his Arabian stud. This oc-
curred in the autumn of 1917.
" i6th Sept. — I was to have left to-day for ICiev, but heavy rain has
fallen and the roads are impassable.
" 1 8/ A Sept, — Potocki and I drove last night to Czemy Ostrov and
dined at the house there of a certain Countess, once a woman of some
fashion at Paris in the days of Napoleon III, still full of gossip, ancient
and modern, for she goes yearly to Nice for the winter. At Czerny
Ostrov she has a nice villa with gardens and grounds, and a select circle
of such fashionable friends as the town affords, with an ancient ad-
mirer much dyed and painted.
" Then Joseph and I travelled on through the night and arrived in
the morning at Kiev. The country for thirty miles or so south of Kiev
is a great oak forest with spaces of cleared land — no very large trees,
but growing well, they say, for the first 100 years, till their roots come
to the gravel, when their growth is stopped. Oaks and birches are
evidently the natural growth of the country, with alders in the swampy
places and a few other trees, though there is a certain admixture of
Scotch firs, new comers I should* say. The Dnieper is the boundary
beyond which the great fir forests of the north begin. The cleared land
is a wide desolation of stubbles and beetroot, stretching for miles with-
out hedge or landmark.
" Potocki's business in Kiev is connected with the sugar trade, in
which he, in common with all the landed proprietors, is interested. The
market now is overstocked, and he tells me he is working his factories
at a loss. A few years ago they were giving a prodigious income, but
the production has become 25 per cent, more than the home consump-
tion, and the general world's sugar market at Odessa has fallen below
cost price. He has something like 30,000 acres of land in hand, and
his stake in beetroot sugar is a large one. Whiljc he went to his sugar
conference, I made the round of Kiev with his agent Kosacki, who
showed me everjrthing. It is a very beautiful and interesting place
with the finest situation, perhaps, of any town in Europe. The view
northwards over the Dnieper and beyond over the great forest towards
Moscow is splendid, and this evening, with a wonderful effect of light
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1895] A Visit to the Ukraine 181
from the setting sun on the gilt cupolas, and a rainbow in the east, was
unimaginably grand. Kiev is a very ancient and holy city, with fine
churches, undergoing restoration, alas, in view of the Emperor's com-
ing visit. The Petchersk is especially interesting, an immense Convent
in the Citadel, thronged just now with pilgrims from distant places in
Russia, and beneath it a catacomb to which one descends by a long stair
towards the river — a fine old-world place, hardly yet ruined by the
villainous modem taste.
'' At the mn I made acquaintance with Count Ladislas Branicki, who
has arranged that I am to go to stay with his Aunt, Countess Branicka,
at Biela-Tzerkov to-morrow, also with Count Pothofski, who has a
stud of Arab horses, and other friends of Joseph's. Our inn the
Grand Hotel.
" igth Sept, — By early train to Bida-Tzerkov, changing at Fastov.
There I was met by Prince John Sapieha, who had come with his niece.
Mile, de Branicka, to see another niece away by the train, both the
girls very pretty in their different ways. We then drove with four
horses, handsome bays, to Alexandrie, Countess Branicka's country
house, a very fine place with beautiful woods and pleasure grounds
where presently, after I had been entertained with tea and peaches,
we went walking to see a pond netted. There is a large family party
gathered here for Countess Branicka's birthday. Her married daugh-
ter. Princess Radowitz, with her children, her nephew, Prince John
Sapieha, and his wife, her unmarried daughter, the pretty one, Sophie,
a Countess Zeilern and her daughter, an old Count Diodati, a Swiss in
attendance on Princess Radowitz, and a few others whose names I
have not quite learned. It is rather perplexing to find oneself so com-
plete a stranger among so many.
"20th Sept. — With Sapieha to Uzin, a stud belonging to Count
Xavier Branicki, a nephew of the Countess, lying about sixteen miles
away. We drove with four common horses, and on the road Sapieha
explained to me the Branicki family history. Biela-Tzerkov was the
capital of the Ukraine, and in former times the headquarters of
Mazeppa. According to tradition the wild horse brought him here
from Warsaw. The steppe was then all grass, but hardly anything of
this remains now, all being under cultivation. In the latter part of the
eighteenth century an immense territory of about a million and a half
acres was given to the Branicki of the day — I fancy the same as the
Branicki of the Lauzun Memoirs — in lieu of a long-standing claim he
had against the Polish Government for the raising and maintenance of
troops. He was called the Hetman. The territory was worth very
little in those days, but is now a principality, bringing in about 7s. an
acre, the current rent. On the death of the late Count, however, it was
divided into four, the Coimtess's share as widow and for her children
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amounted to 450,000 acres. She is therefore immensely rich. The
stud also was divided.
" The history of the stud, of which I have looked over the books,
seems to begin authentically in 181 3, though Sapieha claims for it forty
years or more of antiquity. It can hardly be called a pure Arab stud,
as the stallions then imported stand entered as Turk, Turcoman, An-
atolian, Persian, Arab, and even in 1828 English, while the mares are
equally mixed. It is clear that they have run too much after size;
and at Uzin the type is nearly lost. Occasionally, however, they pro-
duce a first-class horse, and I saw two such, * Hamat ' and ' Haman,' a
bay and a chestnut, of great beauty and ideal action, though 15.2 or
more in height. The latter especially is a nearly perfect specimen, and
will be retained to breed from. The mares are far inferior in looks
to the Sanguscko mares, having coarse heads, long backs, and long
legs. They carry their tails, however, generally well. One cannot
avoid the conviction about them that they are of mixed origin. I only
saw one mare, 'Tamisa,' one would have supposed to be an Arab.
They are breeding now largely from an English thoroughbred, which
gives more saleable stock. They have, however, a very beautiful im-
ported Arab stallion, ' Heyan,' of which they are proud — a dark, full
chestnut, compact, strong, and of the highest quality. I should judge
him to be a horse from Nejd, as he is not quite of the Anazeh type.
But they know no more about him than that he was brought to Warsaw
by a dealer. I strongly advised his use for their stud.
''Countess Branicka is a most amiable womaa Her mother, she
tells me, was English, a sister of Colonel Wilson Patten's wife, after-
wards Lord Winmarleigh. She is clever and kind, most kind to me,
doing everything to make me comfortable, and that I may feel at home.
Her daughter Sophie interests me, a strange, original face, with a
pretty, delicate figure, and a great look of distinction [afterwards
Countess Strozzi]. The other daughter is Princess Radziwill. Sa-
pieha (the Countesses brother) was brought up in England, served in a
Dragoon regiment, and talks French with a slight English accent, Eng-
lish with sporting slang of thirty years ago. His father was con-
cerned in the Polish rising of 1830, and had his whole estate in Russia
confiscated, worth, Countess Branicka tells me, thirty millions of
roubles. His wife, a nice plain woman, had a fortune, and they live in
Galicia. He is most amiable to me, showing me all things with great
zeal. He is or has been manager of the estate and stud. Altogether a
distinguished family, living a large but unpretentious life. The house,
Alexandrie, is less than a palace and more than a common country
house, and is supplemented with several smaller houses in the grounds,
where the guests have their apartments. I should be happy, but that
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i89S] ^ Long Distance Ride in Poland 183
the weather again broke up this evening, and it has become intensely
cold.
" 2ist Sept. — Drove another twenty-five versts with Sapieha to see
the Countess's own stud — the mares better than those of yesterday.
But they are dreadfully in want of good stallions.
'* 22nd Sept. (Sunday). — A bad cold, so did no more stud seeing —
in bed instead. But in the afternoon to the oak wood — they call it the
park — a delightful place, where we gathered 'orange-coloured mush-
rooms. Mile. Sophie drove a pair of chestnut piares to-day perfect in
shape and type. All the world drives here. We went out, three four-
in-hands and three pairs — one four-in-hand of ponies being driven by
a child of Princess Radziwill of five years old. There are two very
fine teams, chestnuts and bays, and a third of greys, besides the ponies.
All is done on a large and bountiful scale, with numbers of old serv-
ants, who carry the children about and kiss their mistress's hand or
sleeve as in the East. The park is a sanctuary for wild beasts and
birds, and no gun is fired in it. But they have an English pack of
hounds, and go outside with it twice a week fox hunting. Foxes are
plentiful, but get soon to earth. In the winter there are wolves, and
Sapieha told me of a run they had had of forty-two versts after an old
one, which they killed. The hounds were afraid of it, but brought it
to bay, and a peasant killed it with a cudgel.
" There has been a race this year at Warsaw, ridden by young Rus-
sian officers, of 100 versts or 120 kilometres, say seventy miles. It
was run in the extreme of the hot weather, and, out of for^-one start-
ers, thirty-six horses died. The race began at eight minutes past two in
the afternoon, and the first horse, an English thoroughbred, arrived at
a few minutes before eight. He survived. The second and third, also
English thoroughbreds, died soon after coming in, and the fourth, an
Arab from Sang^scko's stud, arrived fresh an hour after the first and
took no harm. The young officers seem to have ridden like lunatics,
and I fancy the horses were only half trained. But I am to have
precise details from Potocki. Most of the horses died actually on
the road.
''I took an affectionate leave of Countess Branicka, for she is a
really good kind woman, and we have made great friends. She has a
house also at Warsaw, another at Kiev, and another, I think, at Vienna.
The rest of the party have also been most friendly to me, and I am glad
to have made their acquaintance, where one sees them at their best, in
their own country.
" We had some talk about their political misfortunes. They all say
the cause of Poland is lost, and that there is nothing more to hope.
The persecution is more religious now than political. ' I should not be
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i84 At the Constantinople Embassy [^895
surprised to wake up any morning/ said little Mile. Sophie, ' and learn
that we had to become Greeks or leave the country.' AH the peasantry
and many of the bourgeoisie have conformed, and the young generation
of converted Poles are among the most fanatical Russians. The elder
brother of Countess Branicka's husband was concerned in the rebellion
of 1863, the last flicker of Polish nationality, and was exiled to Siberia,
the property passing, I fancy, to the younger brother.
* * * *
" 26th Sept. — Constantinople, or, rather, Therapia. I arrived at day-
light this morning in the Bosphorus, coming by Russian steamer from
Odessa. A lovely morning, with a slight fog or haze, enough to give
everything a mysterious look, but brightening into full sunshine later,
with fresh north wind rippling the blue water. As we steamed down
the Bosphorus the Russian ship's mate, who talked some English he had
learned in Japan, described what might be done with such a position in
the hands of a European Power, the continuous streets, the railways,
the electric light, etc. Thank Heaven, it is still in its old-fashioned
way.
"Arrived at Galata I was rowed straight to the bridge, and on
board one of the Bosphorus boats, and was so taken back to Therapia,
a slow three hours' trip, zigzagging from side to side, and in full
enjoyment of the day and place. Breakfasted at Petala's, unchanged
from its condition of thirty-five years ago, when I first saw it on my
way home from Athens in this very month of September, i860. Then,
going to the Embassy, I found that I was expected to take up my
quarters there, and here I am. It is strange to be here, with Philip for
Ambassador and Violet Fane for Ambassadress. Philip is altogether
charming, unaffected by his official importance, natural and kind.
" 27th Sept, — There are staying in the house Pom McDonnell, who
is Lord Salisbury's private secretary, come out, I fancy, to gather the
Ambassador's innermost thoughts for his master's benefit — a charming
fellow — and Henry Yorke and Lady Lilian. I spent the morning
answering letters from home, and went riding in the afternoon with
Philip and Pom over the heath-covered hills behind Therapia.
" 2Sth Sept, — In the Embassy catque to Ruvukdereh to call on Neli-
doff (Russian Ambassador) who, as an old friend, received me cor-
dially, but we did not talk politics. He gave me a long and interesting
account of a visit he had paid with Ozeroff and Haymerle in i860 to
Cairo, before any of the European innovations began. With Philip
and Pom I have had long talks about Egypt, and a little about affairs
here.
"29/A Sept^ (Sunday), — Spent the day on board the Imogene (the
ambassadorial despatch boat) with Philip, Pom, and Yorke — a perfect
summer's day. We steamed down the Bosphorus to the Sea of Mar-
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mora, landed on Bulwer's island, circumnavigated Prinkipo, and then
crossed to San Stefano, and home about sunset, the walls of Stam-
boul, the Golden Horn, and the Asiatic shore from Scutari upwards
being lit up with the evening glow, a glorious apparition.
" We had much political talk, first about Egypt, which Philip con-
siders to be a danger to us, but which he says can never be evacuated
— never in the political sense of counting votes at an English election —
though we may be driven out of it. He says that the exclusion of
France after the war of Tel-el-Kebir, from her position in the Joint
Control, was entirely unexpected by him. He was away from the
Foreign Office at the time, and nothing surprised him more than to hear
it had been decided on. It was contrary to all our declarations and all
our policy up to that point. He considers that if the French had de-
clared from the outset their willingness to help in all arrangements and
share expenses incurred, it would have been impossible to refuse them a
renewal of their position. Lord Salisbury had done what he could to
fulfill the promise of evacuation, but the Sultan's refusal to ratify the
Drummond Wolff Convention had ' fortunately ' prevented its accom-
plishment. The French policy had throughout been childish. He was
inclined to agree with me that it was a pity the attempt of Constitutional
Government in Egypt had not been encouraged, as the lack of some-
thing of the sort here was what was ruining Turkey.
" Bulwer's island is a barren and not very attractive little rock, of a
few acres in extent, with some rubbishy buildings, now ruined, which
Bulwer had spent much money on. He had built it for Princess
Ypsilanti, a Greek lady whom he loved, and one of the rooms is still
decorated with a mirror let into the ceiling, in which she could survey
her charms. The Sultan had made him a present of it, and he had
eventually sold it at a fancy price, iio,ooo, to the Khedive Ismail. It
is occupied by a caretaker who keeps a few lean cows, its only in-
habitants. The inner court of the house, overgrown with a yellow rose
tree, run wild, and a clematis, would be pretty if the ruined buildings
were less mean.
" At San Stefano we inspected the new Russian church, a memorial,
not yet finished, of the extreme advance of the Russian army in 1877.
** ioth Sept. — To-day Philip told me the history of the Armenian
trouble, and expressed his opinion distinctly that the Sultan not only
knew of the massacres, but had himself given the order for them and
approved of them. I think this extremely probable — indeed it is al-
most inconceivable that, under so strong a despotism as is the present
regime, any provincial governor or commandant should have dared act
thus on his own responsibility. The Sultan's orders probably were to
stamp out the rebellion. The mistake Philip seems to me to have made,
is that he took the French and Russian Ambassadors into his counsels.
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i86 The Artnenian Trouble [1895
They were sure to play him false. He is now in a very difficult and
false position, for they do not back him up fairly at home, and he has
used such threats that he cannot well let the whole thing drop, which
would have been the wisest course. As far as I understand his
thoughts, he intends, in case of the Sultan's continued refusal to accept
the English ultimatum, to take some violent action with the fleet, not
here nor yet at Smyrna, but elsewhere. He asked me what would be
the effect of blockading Jeddah and proclaiming that the Sultan had
ceased to be sovereign of the Hejaz. I told him that the Grand Sherif
would doubtless succeed to the Sultan's power at Mecca if that power
were destroyed, but that he must not count on any portion of the
population joining English intervention. Much as they disliked the
Turks, they would dislike the English more.
" Communications between the embassy and the palace are all but
interrupted at the present moment, nor is Philip in touch with any
section of the Turkish Moslem community. His information depends
almost entirely upon what he learns from Christians — no Moslem dar-
ing to call on him. Now and again he receives a letter in strict con-
fidence, but very seldom, from members of the old Liberal party. He
counts on the death or deposition of the Sultan, which he thinks might
take place at any moment, and he would favour any attempt to revive
a more liberal rigime. But, until there is a question as between the
Sultan and his Mohammedan subjects, he says, he is powerless to take
action. It is a misfortune of the position that England has only treaty
rights of intervention in favour of the Christian Armenians. I talked
all these matters over with Pom as we rode across the wooded hills in
the afternoon to Kilia.
" On our return we found Yorke and Lady Lilian and Clara Single-
ton just returned from Stamboul, where they had witnessed a disturb-
ance, which may prove to be an important one, between a body of
Armenians and the authorities. According to the accounts given us
oy Philip of the affair, it appears that some days ago he received notice
from the Armenian Revolutionary Committee that they intended making
a demonstration in favour of the prompt settlement of the Armenian
case. They were to assemble in Stamboul and present a petition at the
Ministry. This seems now to have been forcibly prevented — a number
of arrests were made — the Armenians fired shots — a Turkish colonel
in full uniform was seen dead in the street — the Turks were allowed
by the police to arm themselves with cudgels — some Armenians were
beaten to death — and six others were bayonetted at the Zaptieh. But
accounts differ greatly. The cavass who escorted the Yorkes declares
that his party was menaced, and that he drew his revolver to protect
them. But Yorke assures me that nothing of the sort took place as
far as his party was concerned. All they saw was the Turks arming
Digitized by
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themselves with the cudgels — great crowds, and men being carried
away in carriages with their arms bound. Still it has produced much
excitement, and there is talk of revolution, massacres, and who knows
what more.
" 1st Oct. — The news to-day about the Armenian riot is that the
deputation arranged by the Armenian Revolutionary Committee con-
sisted of 2,000 men, who were to meet at Kapu and to march to the
Ministry (the Porte), while a deputation of women were to go to
Yildiz. On their assembling, however, the police, forewarned of their
intention, stopped and arrested the leaders. The Armenians then fired
revolvers, and the Bimbashi of the Police was killed. Arrests were
then made, the police, it is said, conniving at the Mohammedans of the
quarter arming themselves with cudgels and beating the Armenian
prisoners. Sixty Armenians are reported killed and fifteen of the
police. The last news is that 1,000 Armenians, with some women and
children, are being besieged in a church in the Armenian quarter. The
revolvers and knives found on the Armenians arrested were all of one
pattern, a fact which points to premeditation of defence, if not of at-
tack. All this reminds me much of what took place at Alexandria in
1882 when the fleet was ordered there. I expect to see the programme
repeated here. There will be a cry of * Europeans in danger ' ; the fleet
will be ordered up to the Sea of Marmora; some British sailors will be
mobbed on shore; a British Consul will be assaulted; and Stamboul
will be bombarded. I am glad I am here to exercise what slight re-
straining power I can, though I am glad to say Philip shows no sign yet
of having lost his head or lost his temper. We drove in the evening to
the aqueduct, a very lovely evening.
" 2nd Oct. — I went in the Embassy launch to Constantinople to-day
to lunch with my old relative, Walter Blunt Pasha. We landed at the
railway station on Seraglio Point, and drove across the bridge, where
all things had returned to their usual quiet. The Pasha tells me the
Armenians who formed the deputation had been warned not to come
in large numbers, and not to come armed. They therefore divided
themselves into groups. One of these was stopped by the police, and,
an altercation arising, the Bimbashi struck the leading Armenian with
his sword, whereupon the man nearest him drew a revolver and shot
the Bimbashi through the head. This led to a general riot ; arrests were
made and men killed on both sides. There seems no doubt that the
Moslems of the quarter were encouraged to arm themselves with staves.
He says, however, that the Government is afraid now that the Softas
who took part in the riot against the Armenians will continue it against
the Government. The Sultan, he says, has become very unpopular in
the last two years, and everybody would really be glad to get rid of him.
Even the highest officials are kq>t in a state of tutelage which galls
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i88 Currie's View of Abdul Hamid [1895
them severely. ' I myself/ he said, * could not so much as go away for
forty-eight hours to Broussa without permission from the Sultan him-
self. Neither the Minister of War nor the Grand Vizier could give it
me.' The Softas, too, are tired of Abdul Hamid, who they think is
ruining the country. The army has been unpaid for five months.
" Norman, a newspaper man, came in and told me tales of assaults
and assassinations of Armenians last night by the mob. But as yet
neither Europeans nor Greeks have been molested. I do not think the
matter is likely to go much farther at present. The chief Armenians
went to-day to the palace to arrange terms for the men shut up in the
churches, and are believed to have been successful. I find Philip very
strong on the necessity of getting rid of Abdul Hamid. ' We have come
to the conclusion,' he said to-day, ' that it will be necessary to kill him.
To depose him would be very difficult, perhaps impossible.' I do not
suppose that he would do this by any direct instigation, but he would
certainly coimtenance a revolution which should proceed by this means.
The idea is in the air, but twenty years of absolute despotism have
weeded out the more venturesome spirits.
" I have written a long letter on the political situation here to Lady
Lytton, who will, as likely as not, show it to the Queen, as she is now
in waiting at Balmoral. Archibald Lamb has arrived from England,
Lady Currie's brother.
"3rd Oct, — The Queen's Messenger, old Conway Seymour, was
despatched to-day. So I was busy writing letters. Philip went in with
him to the Porte to call on the new Grand Vizier, Kiamil Pasha, who
is supposed to be more favourable to English policy than the last, Said
Pasha. But I fancy there is little real difference. I remember Kiamil
at Aleppo in 1877, a little man of Jewish origin, who had once been tutor
to the Khedive Tewfik.
" 4th Oct. — In the launch to the mouth of the Black Sea, and in the
afternoon to the Sweet Waters of Asia in the ten-oared caique, a pretty
sight. Philip saw the Grand Vizier to-day, having missed him yester-
day. He tells me the attacks on Armenians still continue, and the
churches are still full of refugees. It is certain, however, that the
Armenians are being pushed on by the Revolutionary Committee. It
is a Secret Committee prompted, Philip tells me, by Russian Nihilists ;
and the trouble has been caused by the arrest of Armenians suspected
of belonging to it, and their torture in prison. On the other hand mur-
ders have been instigated by the Committee, of Armenians suspected
of betraying their cause. They seem to count on English help, and talk
of an independent Armenia under an English Prince. All this is, of
course, impossible, but it is the fault of our people, who have encouraged
a rising they are really powerless to assist. On the other hand the
Sultan, Philip thinks, has a design of exterminating the Christian
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i89Sl Professor Vambfry 189
Armenians in the provinces, just as the Emperor of Russia is extermi-
nating the Catholic Poles, and for the same reason, to govern the coun-
try more easily. The delay in settling the Armenian question, raised by
England, has prompted the Committee to more desperate measures.
It is a curious state of things, which Philip says can only end in the
deposition or death of Abdul Hamid. We discuss these matters daily,
Philip and I and McDonnell and Yorke.
" On ilonday I have arranged to go to Pera to stay with General
Blunt, and on Wednesday I depart for Egypt.
" $th Oct. — A long ride with McDonneU in the forest of Belgrade.
He asked me whether I thought Lady Currie would make a good Am-
bassadress at Paris. I had heard from Lady Galloway that Paris had
been promised to Lord Londonderry, and that in any case Philip would
not have it. McDonnell, however, being Lord Salisbury's private sec-
retary, doubtless knows best, and I trust Philip may have it. He told
me some interesting particulars about his chief, his many virtues and
his great tolerance for those who had none. McDonnell is a charming
fellow, with much of the Kerr eccentricity, for he is through his mother
a Kerr.
" In the evening a large dinner party to the Russian and Austrian
Ambassadors. ... A sudden change of weather in the night, a violent
thunderstorm with heavy rain, and now a strong north wind. It is
time I was away in Egypt.
"6th Oct, (Sunday). — A day of wind and rain, no one movii^ out
of doors till about sunset, when I took Pom out for a walk in the
Embassy garden. There have been great comings and goings between
Philip and the other Embassies, for they are preparing some joint ac-
tion on the Sultan to stop the rioting in Constantinople. Pom is more
conununicative now than Philip, and I hope I have been able to in-
doctrinate him a bit in my ideas.
" 7th Oct. — The weather has cleared, and I drove in to Pera in an
open carriage, and am now in the house of my ' relative ' at 51 rue
Kabristan, an old-fashioned little box of a place with a bow window
looking over the Golden Horn. General Blunt has been some twenty
years in the Sultan's service, and received his promotion to the rank of
Ferik, General of Division, only yesterday — a fine-looking old man,
who has no other duty than to attend the Selamlik every Friday, and
wear a handsome uniform.
" Professor Vambery came to dinner and Capt. Norman, and we had
a most interesting evening. The position here at Constantinople, ac-
cording to these, is this : The Armenians, having unquestionably be-
gun the disturbance, are now being harried by the joint action of the
police and the mob. The mob are encouraged, or at any rate allowed,
to break into the khans at nig^t where the Armenians congregate, and
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190 The Armenian Question [1S95
sometimes into private houses, and beat the people they find in them to
death with sticks. In some instances the police force admittance at the
front door while the Armenian escapes at the back door only to fall
into the hands of fellows waiting for him in the street. Thus several
himdreds seem to have been killed. The mob is ostensibly headed by
Softas, students of the University, but it is probable that these are
often police agents in the Softa dress. At any rate it is certain that
the police connive. The Armenian churches are full of refugees.
Norman has been busy going round to these and to the Patriarch's
house, where they also congregate, and told us many tales.
" Vambery was very communicative. He talked strongly against
the Sultan in this business, although he has been a favourite at the
palace. He declares that, though superstitious, the Sultan is at heart a
free thinker, his religion being with him a matter of policy, and he
related several anecdotes bearing on this point. It is the Sultan's
brother and heir presumptive, Rashid,^ who is a true ' fanatic' The
Sultan has a deliberate political purpose, to diminish and drive out the
Armenians, imitating in this the Emperor of Russia in his treatment
of the Poles and the Jews. Vambery is of opinion that Abdul Hamid
cannot long retain his throne, and agrees with me as to the desirability
of renewing the Constitution of 1876. This was the best chance Turkey
ever had of putting herself on a level with other European nations. It
is the best chance still. But it can hardly be under the present Sultan.
" 8th Oct. — With Godfrey Webb, Mrs. Horner, Mrs. Crawshay, and
Lord Llandaff (Matthews) to see the Museum and St. Sophia's —
and with Norman to see the street door of the Armenian church in
Pera.
'^gth Oct. — Left Constantinople for Egypt.
" 12th Oc^— Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd, Elhamdu I'lUah.
Epitome of the Armenian Question, written by me on hoard ship on
my way to Alexandria.
" I. The Sultan, to prevent Armenia being given autonomy, on the
ground of its possessing a Christian majority in any one province, en-
courages the Mohammedans of the Armenian provinces to ill-treat the
Christians so as to force them to emigrate.
** 2. The Christian Armenians, under the direction of a secret Com-
mittee organized by Russian Nihilists, and encouraged by English sym-
pathy, refuse to pay taxes at Samsun.
" 3. The Sultan orders their resistance to be crushed at all cost.
" 4. The Turkish military Governor crushes it with great barbarity.
" 5. The English Government, under Rosebery, urged by its Liberal
^Mohammed Rashid, afterwards Sultan Mohammed V.
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1895] Epitomized 191
supporters, intervenes. Philip Currie is urged to activity in repeated
despatches.
" 6. The ' Times/ seeing in the Armenian question a useful counter-
irritant to the Egyptian question, chimes in.
" 7. The English Government invites the French and Russian Gov-
ernments to join them. This at Philip Currie's initiative.
" 8. These, believing the English Government to be willing to parti-
tion Turkey, accept the proposal of joint action. N.B. Rosebery
probably is willing to partition Turkey.
" 9. Rosebery goes out of office in England. In Russia Giers dies
and is succeeded by Labanov. A change of policy ensues.
" ID. France and Russia, knowing that Lord Salisbury, now at the
Foreign Office, will not consent to the partition of Turkey, back out of
joint action with England.
** II. Salisbury, to avoid questions in Parliament and to gain time,
professes to go on alone.
" 12. The Sultan, secretly reassured at Paris and St. Petersburg,
stiffens his back. The negotiations at Constantinople are dawdled out.
" 13. Gladstone makes his Armenian speech at Chester. Subscrip-
tions are opened in England.
" 14. Salisbury, to make show of being in earnest, orders a British
fleet to the Dardanelles.
" 15. The Armenian Committee, encouraged by the approach of the
English fleet, and believing Salisbury to be in earnest, and that England
will undertake the job of coercing the Sultan single-handed, organizes
a demonstration at Constantinople. This is done with Philip's privity.
" 16. The Sultan orders the Armenian demonstration to be crushed.
" 17. The Armenians are crushed at Constantinople with great bar-
barity.
"18. ??
"N.B. My impression, gathered from what Philip has told me,
strongly is (i) that he was not keen, at the outset of the Samsun affair,
to intervene, but took the matter up under Rosebery's orders ; (2) that
he was responsible for the partnership with France and Russia; (3)
that having embarked in the business he has since made it one personal
to himself ; (4) that for the last six months, at least, he has been in
communication with the Revolutionary Committee, probably acting in
concert with them; (5) that he was privy to the demonstration of 30th
September, probably encouraged it, though perhaps not its being armed.
It is he who told me that the Armenian Committee was organized by
Russian Nihilists. This Committee has for its object, not union with
Russia, but the establishment of an independent Armenia under Eng-
lish protection. They would take annexation to Russia as a pis-oiler.
But that is not their object.'*
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192 Russian Policy [i895
I found out afterwards that on Giers' death the Russian policy to-
wards Armenia underwent an entire change, though Philip Currie was
not aware of it at the time. Instead of the old policy of protecting the
Christian subjects of the Porte, Labanov's policy was to encourage the
Sultan to exterminate the Armenians as allies of Russia's own Nihilists.
It is doubtful whether the change was communicated to Nelidoff, a
diplomatist of the old school of Christian protection ; and I am inclined
to think that he was in good faith in continuing his own sympathy mth
the Armenians, and expressing it to Currie. But of this later.
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CHAPTER X
THE ADVANCE ON DONGOLA
*' 14th Oct. — I arrived at Sheykh Obeyd and remained there only a
fortnight, going on from Cairo up the Nile to visit Upper Egypt and
Nubia, a part of the Nile Valley still new to me. I travelled on this
occasion alone, my family not having yet arrived, and got as far south
as what was then the extreme frontier of Egypt towards the Soudan.
"2gth Oct—Ltit Sheykh Obeyd for the Upper Nile, taking All
SuflFraji with me as body servant.
" Passing through Cairo called on Gorst, who begged me to inquire
on my journey whether there was any ill-feeling in Upper Egypt be-
tween Moslems and Copts, and on other points to get him what informa-
tion I cotild. He told me that as to Philse, the reservoir scheme was
for the time laid by, the finances being not quite safe, and the political
conditions too uncertain.
" At sunset I drove out beyond the Kasr el Nil bridge, to enjoy the
cool breeze and see the villages still partly surrounded by water and at
nine I started by train. I travelled all night, comfortably enough but
for the exceeding dust, with a fine moon in its second quarter, and a
splendid morning star, showing the country still half inundated. Peo-
ple are beginning to sow their beans and wheat in the immense flats of
mud. In other places the plain is covered with sheep feeding on the
new green grass before it is ploughed. Sugar cane is the only growing
crop.
"30th Oct. — At half-past ten reached Girgeh, where the railway
ends, and took boat in a stern-wheel steamer leaving at one. No first-
class passenger besides myself, except, three French engineers connected
with the railway now being constructed to Keneh. With one of them,
Megie, I had some interesting talk. He has been thirty-five years in
the country, having come as a boy with his father, a protigi of Linant
Pasha — now for eight years in Upper Egypt — intelligent and kindly.
He tells me there is absolutely no ill-will between Moslems and Copts
— ^ never was any, even in the time of Arabi — knew Arabi — consid-
ered him a brave homme — had remained at Kaliub till after the bom-
bardment, when he left by the last train for Suez — could have stayed
on, if he had liked, in security at Cairo, though perhaps not in the
villages. I asked him whether the fellahin were better oflf now or in
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Said Pasha's time. ' Dans le temps de Said/ he answered, * les oeufs
se vendaient cent pour une piastre. Voila ce.que j'appelle la misere.
Pour le bien etre, oui. lis etaient a leur aise, et les impots etaient
moins eleves. Mais ils n'etaient pas au courant de la civilisation.' A
characteristic French answer. This is a good specimen of the ideas
even intelligent foreigners have, and he certainly spoke with S3anpathy
of the fellahin. Stopped for the night at Farshut, where they are
making the new railway bridge. It has been sweltering hot all the
afternoon, thermometer 85, but cool after sunset.
** Zist Oct, — Travelling due east, a pleasant wind in our faces —
multitudes of birds, not yet scared away by the tourists^ guns, herons,
pelicans, little white herons, cormorants, pied kingfishers, hoopoes —
few signs of European life — immense crops of millet, taller than a
camel and rider, this makes the banks green. The Nile has fallen three
metres, and the shadoufs are at work. This is the season to see the
Upper Nile, or any part of it for that matter. I never had a pleasanter
fortnight at Sheykh Obeyd than since the 12th, when I returned there
— the garden a paradise of birds and beasts, two wolves every evening
in the palms at El Kheysheh, and numberless foxes — millions of spar-
rows roosting nightly in the orange trees (so that the whole garden
smelt in the morning like a bird-cage), everything perfection.
" Past Keneh there are splendid reaches of the river, with banks beau-
tifully wooded with sont trees in full flower besides abels, nebuks, and
palms of both sorts — no lebbeks nor gemeysehs, though I saw a huge
dead trunk of a gemeyseh by the water side. The lebbek, though an
old Egyptian tree, seems to have become almost extinct till the present
century, when it was reintroduced with the other modern improve-
ments. There can be none in the country older than seventy or eightv
years, big trees as they are.
" i^^ Nov, — Luxor. The Luxor Hotel is open, but empty with the
exception of an invalid doctor (Dr. Ruffer) and his wife, and New-
bury, an archaeologist, who comes in for meals, having been here
through the summer. Tourists there are none. I went out before sun-
rise and looked at the temple, and later to Kamak. The ancient
Egyptians seem always to have built on the Nile mud, a mean founda-
tion.
" The Consul, Ahmed Eff . Mustafa, called on me and invited me to
luncheon, an Eg)rptian meal served with much hospitality. He is an
honest, good man, of the fellah type, very proud of his visitors' book,
which dates from 1855, and is a pretty complete history of modem
Egypt. I found my brother Francis' name and Alice's, and Lady
Herbert's party, and the Mures and Spencers, who were here in dahor
biyahs in (the autumn of) 1863, and Lady Dufferin's in 1858, with a
vast number of others recalling old memories, Strangf ord's, Beaufort's,
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i89Sl Minshatti Bey 195
down to ' H. M. Stanley's of the " New York Herald," ' and General
Gordon's in 1884, and Lord Waterford's last year, who shot himself a
month ago — nearly all dead now.
" 2nd Nov, — Across the river before sunrise to the statue of Mem-
non and the temples of Goumah and Medinet Habou. The latter is
a really fine thing, and I was able to see it alone without guides or fel-
low sightseers. But I am left with the impression that the Nile itself,
with its great flow of water and its ever green banks and eternal youth
is the really interesting thing, far finer than its monuments. These are
interesting as part of the river's history, not the Nile because of them.
The greatest of human works are a very small matter, after all, and
the world would be hardly poorer if mankind had never been — greatly
richer, indeed, seeing how much beauty we have destroyed. To Karnak
again in the evening, and rode through by the light of the full moon.
" yd Nov, — Again across the river to see some minor monuments
not worth visiting. I was followed by a troop of little girls whom the
tourists have debauched with bakshish. I thought at first they were
Ghazawiyeh, so shameless were they, a sight I have never seen before
in all the lands of Islam. Coming in, I received a visit from Minshatti
Bey the Ababdeh Sheykh to whom I had sent to tell him I was here.
He is a delightful old man, whom our military people have quarrelled
with, suspecting him of Mahdist tendencies. Kitchener deposed him
from the Sheykhat and put in another, Beshir Bey, in his place, who
now lives at Assouan under the eye of the Government, and does their
business with the tribe. But Minshatti is the real Sheykh. The young
Khedive, when he was here, sent for Minshatti, and made much of him,
and gave him a robe of honour. This was made one of the points
of Kitchener's quarrel with the Khedive. The old man tells me that
the Sirdar now treats him better, and he is allowed to go about where
he likes, and is not molested by the police. He promised — but I think
rather doubtingly, for he is probably afraid — to send one of his rela-
tions with me if I went travelling, as I intend to do this winter, among
the Ababdeh.
"Had some talk with Dr. Ruffer, who is a distinguished man of
science, a bacteriologist. He had a paralytic stroke six months ago
(it was a case of blood poisoning caused by one of his experiments),
and is here for his health. He is looking for bacteria in the desert
sand.
" Later I went to Minshatti's house, which is just outside the town,
a clean, new building, where he received me with carpets spread on the
mastaba, a nice cool place. I asked him about the Soudan, and the
Mahdi, and the Khalifa, and he told me much that was interesting.
He never saw the Mahdi himself, but several of his relations knew him
when he was a najar (carpenter), a boat builder at Dongola. He was
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196 Dongola under the Khalifa [1895
an aUm and a faki; but his political fortunes were the work originally
of Jaffir Bey, who had quarrelled with the Government. He said the
Mahdi was a good man; and as long as he lived everybody in the
Soudan believed in him as the true Mahdi. But the Khalifa had
ruined everything. The reason of the Baggara power was that the
Khalifa had put forward all the best men of the other tribes to fight,
and these had got killed in the wars, while the Baggaras were held in
reserve and reaped the profits. The Khalifa had got possession of
all the firearms in the country on the pretext of having them in readi-
ness to resist an invasion, and so the Baggaras, his own tribe, were the
only ones thus armed. El Nejumi had made his expedition, which
ended at Toski [this was the battle won by Grenfell, see later], be-
cause an attempt had been made to poison him, and he wanted to get
away somewhere where he should be his own master. The chiefs of
the tribes when not killed in war had been got rid of on various pre-
texts by the Khalifa. They had been accused of treason and put into
a kind of fetter which Minshatti described to me as being a lon^ tube
of iron holding the arms straight out from the shoulder to the wrist.
A man with his arms thus fettered was helpless and died in a month.
Thus only children were left in the tribes, and the Baggaras, an ignoble
tribe with whom the Jaalin and Kababish and Hadendowas and
Ababdeh would not in former times intermarry, had got all power into
their hands.
" I did not, however, gather from him that the f ellahin were ill off.
He told me durra was at three reals the ardeb, and all things were
plentiful. But the richer people suffered exactions, so that it was the
common cry that the Baggaras' rule was worse than the rule of the
Turks. He talked a good deal about Salatin (Slatin) and Neufelt.
He said that an expedition from the Government would be joined by
everyone in the Soudan. I asked him if it would be so if the expedi-
tion was an English one. He said that the opinion now in the Soudan
had changed, and that the people there no longer regarded the gufara
(infidels, meaning Christians) as they did ten years ago. Many of
them had been wounded and taken prisoners, and had afterwards been
released, and had related at home that the kufara had treated them
well. As Minshatti was certainly suspecfted of being in league with
the Mahdists, and probably was so a few years ago, his evidence is of
more value than most. But I expect that the Baggaras are stronger
in the country than he quite makes out. The noble tribes are doubtless
jealous of them, as there are always jealousies among Arab tribes.
Of his own position he said that he was one of the three great Sheykhs
of the Ababdeh, the others being Beshir and Saleh Ibn Khalifeh, lately
killed at Murad. They each used to received £40 a month from the
Government, but Beshir's allowance had been reduced to £32, and his
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own to £5. He asked me to try and get his raised. I said I would try
to do so, but fear there is no diance.
" 4ih Nov. — On board the Ibis. We passed Erment this morning
where there are many lebbek and gemeyseh trees apparently twenty
years old, also larger factories and some cotton cultivation. I did not
notice any dogs there, though Erment is famous for its large rough
breed. The dogs generally of the Upper Niles are rougher than those
in the north. Matana, a beautifully wooded place, was one of the
Khedive Ismail's properties. Esneh in the afternoon, away from the
river with two square masses of ancient stonework on mounds of rub-
bish. Stopped for the night at Silsilis, the moon very splendid, as red
and bright as a fire lit just under it when it rose.
" My companions on board are three or four English officers of the
Egyptian army, with the limited conversation of their kind. But I
like young Broadwood who commands the cavalry at Wady Haifa.
" Sth Nov. — Some attractive desert places on the left bank where
cultivation has been abandoned and its place taken by half a grass and
green bushes — the palms gone wild. There are a good many horses
turned out, tethered in the barley to graze, and on the durra. Some of
them are bays with white faces and four white legs, probably of the
Dongola breed — tall, with straight shoulders and drooping quarters.
Kom Ombo close to the river, temple and fort on a natural mound.
The river is now generally from a kilometre to a mile broad, a few
mud banks banning to show in places.
" At 1 130 arrived at Assouan. It has a European appearance. The
approach to it is fine. Having made acquaintance on board with Mus-
tafa Bey Shakir, deputy mamur of Assouan, I inquired of him what
government lands there were for sale — this for Evelyn, who has an
idea of purchasing here — and he sent me on a donkey to look at a
building belot^ng to the Government known as the Mukhtab el Miri
el Buhari, about "two miles down the river. There are well wooded
gardens near it, which the guard said might be bought from the tel-
lahin owners for iio and £15 the feddan. The Government is asking
£300 for the building. In a few years the railway will be brought near
it, and it might not be a bad purchase.
" Then by train to Shellal, put my things on board the Reamer, and
spent the evening sailing about Phite and the edge of the cataract, one
of the loveliest things I remember of the kind. Indeed, the only recol-
lection I can compare with it is the boating expedition we made on the
great tank at Hyderabad ten years ago. It was a perfect evening, and
the rocks and swirling water in the twilight, and the boat with the
Berber crew singing were everything one could imagine in Philae.
*'6th Nov. — Rode on donkey-back before sunrise to see the position
of the proposed dam, which is a mile or so below Philae. Philae as it
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198 PhiltB Still Unspoiled [1895
is, is perhaps the one perfect thing in the world, and anything added to
or taken from it would probably spoil it. So I trust they will leave it
alone. At the same time if they would be content with banking the
river to the natural height of the Nile at flood, I do not see that it
need do a great harm. But of course they want more, and to make it
the bigjgest engineering thing in the universe. The situation is tempt-
ing to an engineer, as the solid boulders of granite would make it an
heroic bit of stonework.
"At eight we started again up the river. The change of scenery
above the cataract is most sudden and complete, made more so by the
as sudden and complete change in the inhabitants, who are here Berbers.
Indeed, Egypt ends abruptly at Assouan. The Soudan begins at Philse.
These upper reaches, between piled-up granite boulders, are very at-
tractive, as there are many places one might use as hermitages, islands
of rock with a few sont trees and palms, some having the remains on
them of buildings. At Kalabsheh a new and still narrower gate is
passed. This is where the French chose their site for the dam. It
is difficult to say which of the two sites would be the best for the
purpose. Thus, all day long, between endless granite boulders on the
eastern shore, and the same, partly covered with drift sand, on the
western, the cultivation almost nil, a narrow fringe of palms and sonts
and seyyals, with here and there a patch of vegetables sown at the
river's edge or a field of durra,
" 7th Nov. — We stopped for the night at Dendur, and in the morn-
ing light found ourselves outside the narrow gorge, and among drifts
of nefud — red sand — on the western bank, apparently encroaching.
Broadwood tells me there is a long line of nefuds running north-west
which is impassable for camels. This, as I understand him, we^ of
the road to the oases. But I doubt if he has been far enough to know.
" I have made friends on board with a military doctor, Mohammed
Eff. Towfik, who began by quarrelling with me as an Englishman
for the occupation of Egypt, but we speedily came to an understand-
ing, and I find him to be a friend of Mohammed Abdu's, and a statmch
Nationalist of the fellah party. Though still a young man, perhaps
thirty-five, he remembers the Russian war of 1877, and knew Arabi.
He told me very frankly that there were people who suspected me of
having stood in with our diplomacy in 1882. It was pleasant to find
a man so fearless and outspoken, especially as much of our conversa-
tion was within hearing of the English officers, Broadwood, Lawrie, and
a third, Healy, who understands Arabic. The doctor is a fellah, pro-
prietor of 300 feddans near Benisouef, and declares that the fellahin
are in a worse condition materially than before the rebellion. I doubt
this. But I think it likely he is right about Upper Egypt. Certainly
all this district south of Assouan shows traces of decline; and the
Digitized by
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Berber population is lean and hungry. He was eager to know about
the Armenian question, and about the condition of India, and I ex-
plained both to him. He is a very intelligent, worthy man, of the
kind most required. He admitted freely the personal liberty now
enjoyed and the liberty of the press, but complained bitterly of there
being no self-government, no constitution. I agree with him on all
points, except that of the material poverty. He is opposed to tiie
reservoirs, but in favour of an advance on the Soudan, at least to
Dongola. My own impression is that it would have been best in
1885 to have made Assouan the boundary of Egypt, instead of Wady
Haifa. It is a much stronger frontier and far less costly. The only
reason for an advance now is to forestall a European one, either Italian
or French. /
" We stopped for the night at Korosko, and I went ashore with the
Commandant, Ibrahim Bey Fathy, a fine looking fellah soldier, who
showed us round *the barracks by starlight. They are making surveys
for a railway to Murad, and Broadwood tells me they intend, when-
ever the advance to Khartoum is made, to take that route. But there
is nothing in contemplation at present. The English officers are good
fellows, and are very polite and amiable 'to their Egyptian brother
officers ; but it is easy to see that there is no real intimacy or knowledge
of each other's thoughts. Broadwood complains of this ; and I should
think that, if it came to a pinch, the Egyptian officers could not be inr.-
plicitly relied on. I fancy they all resent the superior commands being
English. They do not mess with the English officers, and live much
apart. This is no doubt partly because the English know very little
Arabic. Ibrahim Bey spoke excellent English, and dined with us on
board. There are two young fellows, Englishmen of the Royal En-
gineers, who have been sent out here to make the railroad to Murad,
excellent ingenuous youths of perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four,
to whom it IS great fun and solid advancement, as they are given the
rank of majors in the Egyptian army. This is a sample of what leads
to discontent among the native officers, for the work is an absolutely
simple one, and could be performed by any of their own engineers.
Yet these young Englishmen have it. Again, the command of the cav-
alry at Haifa is left during the summer months to a native officer, but
as soon as the winter begins, when there are manoeuvres and parades
of the kind soldiers love, young Broadwood comes to take his place.
My friend the doctor is eloquent on these things, and I have no doubt
reflects the general sentiment.
" Sth Nov, — Passed the battlefields at . . . and Toski, the former
fought with an advanced body of the Dervishes, the latter with the
main body under Wad el Nejumi. The English officers gave me an
account of the two actions. By their showing, it was little more than
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200 The Victory of Toski [i"895
a massacre, for the Dervishes were in the last stage of exhaustion from
hunger and thirst, their camels dying, and their women and children.
The way they had come is still marked by the skeletons left on the
sand. They marched some five miles from the river, along the left
bank, sending the women and children at night to get water, the
English-Egyptian army meanwhile cruising comfortably parallel to
them in boats. They had forced the Berber inhabitants of the left
bank to cross over the river and take all eatable things with them, so
that Nejumi's army found nothing. Then, when the Dervishes were
quite worn out, the troops were landed and drove the dervishes into
a gully, where these made their final stand, and were all shot down.
Mohammed Towfik, who was there, says that of all the 4,000 who left
Dongola with Nejumi, only 300 combatants remained to fight at Toski.
The action at . . . was a smaller affair than Toski, and, if I under-
stood rightly, one of cavalry on the Egyptian side. The left bank in
this part is a desolate region of drift sand with a few bushes, but at
Toski there is palm cultivation for a mile or two. The right bank,
where there is no sand, is mostly planted.
" At four we came to Abu Simbel and stopped for a quarter of an
hour, so that we were able to land and Ibok at the temple. Broadwood
showed me a pompous marble tablet left into the rock outside, of which
he was ashamed. It recorded the gallant victory of General Grenfell
over ' the rebels.* The temple is very fine, and has the great merit of
being no ruin, but a perfectly habitable place ctrt out of the rock, and
very little injured by time. There was a party outside it clearing away
the sand. There is a grave, too, where an English officer is buried who
happened to die on board a passing steamer — * a rotten place,' Laurie
remarked, 'to bury an Englishman in.' The Berbers are a poor,
narrow-chested, feeble, half-starved people, reminding one much of
the natives of Southern India. There can hardly be a greater contrast
than between them and the Egyptian fellahin. The Berbers are ex-
empted from recruiting, and should be exempted from taxation. They
live ahnost entirely on dates, and are much subject, it is said, to fever.
At night we passed a Govemmeift steamer having on board the English
acting commandant of Wady Haifa, Lewis, a little talkative man of
whom Broadwood and Laurie, who are fine young fellows, made light.
We stopped to pay him a visit and then went on in the dark.
" gth Nov. — Arrived at Wady Haifa, a beautiful cool morning, with
a strong north wind blowing over the plain. Wady Haifa has the ad-
vantage of being placed where the hills are low and stand back from
the river. Otherwise a quite uninteresting place — low military huts
fronting the river, with bits of trees and gardens about them, officers'
quarters and the re^.
*'I lunched at the Commandant's quarters with Lewis, who has
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returned, and then went with Broadwood to Sarras by train. From
the railway one sees the cataracts well, a wild and pretty country witti
plenty of small trees, principally urdi, a kind of acacia, on the islands.
The palms have been all cut down by the Dervishes in their hunger.
They occupied Sarras for two years, and, Broadwood tells me, had no
commissariat of any kind, living on an)rthing they could get. They
used to make raids on tiie villages under Government protection, and
on one occasion cleared out Towfikieh, the civilian quarter of Wady
Haifa, killing some 600, and driving the Greek drink-sellers into the
river, where several were drowned. The country between Wady Haifa
and Sarras has been in part re-peopled, but beyond Sarras it is still
No Man's Land, the Dervish out-post being now at Akasheh, 100 miles
away. We were entertained in the fortified camp by Sellem Bey, an
English officer, who recaptured Sarras from the Dervishes, a good fel-
low and intelligent.
" loih Nov. (Sunday). — Walked round the camp with Broadwood
and then back to Haifa in time to see the camel corps, 275 strong,
marching in from a field day — a really fine sight — the camels mostly
white ones.
" Several Berbers came to seek my intervention with Lewis to get
permission to return to Dongola, their native country. They told me
that there would be amdn for them there; that the Khalifa was pleased
at the return of refugees, and that they could re-occupy their lands
without hindrance ; that there was less oppression than there had been,
and that they would be better off there than here ; that the population
of Dongola had been so thinned by the emigration of seven years ago,
and afterwards by the famine, that there was land for all comers, dates
in plenty, durra at thirty piastres the ardeb, and wheat at fifty. I
asked them about the taxes, and they told me that the Khalifa took a
tithe in kind, but that the Baggaras entruAed with the government did
this in a very arbitrary way, as, for instance, if there was an ardeb
of dates, they would count it an ardeb and a half; also that nobody
dared make a display of wealth, all superfluity being taken to the beyt
el mal. People, however, were not interfered with if they were con-
tent to cultivate a few feddans and live on the produce. H they made
money, they must hide it in the ground. As far as I could gather from
them, they considered the independence of the country (wdtani) from
the Government an advantage, now that there was no longer excessive
oppression. They assured me that, out of 4,000 or 5,000 refugees in
Egypt, most would be glad to return. I promised to talk to Lewis about
it, and, failing his permission, to bring their general case before Cromer.
It seems absurd to keep them starving in Egypt, now they are willing
to return.
" I left Haifa with Lewis in the Government steamer for Assouan —
Digitized by
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202 Military Talk [1895
with us several of the officers who were going as far as Sarras on a
shooting excursion. I noticed a pair of hubaras (frilled bustards) on
the right bank, and had seen one yesterday between Haifa and Sarras.
We stopped at four, and they all went shooting except me, bringing
back a few ducks, gadwells, shovellers, and teals, also a snipe and a
cormorant. Sarras is a very pretty place, with a lake in the sandhills
well grown over with tamarisks, unlike an)rthing I have seen north of
the Fayum — a village and a little cultivation in the tamarisk scrub,
just now beautifully green.
" Much military talk in the evening, my host being a loquacious little
man with a crudest of ideas political. According to him, we are to
have an English fleet in two years' time which will enable us to do what
we like in the world, when we are to annex Egypt and Constantinople
too. An empty-headed little fellow, who has been eight years in the
Egyptian service and has acquired a certain command of qui-hi Arabic
most comic, which he imagines to be the purest dialect — all pronounced
as written, in a plain English accent. But his servants and men are
used to it and make out his meaning. The relations between the Eng-
lish officers and the natives seem to be much what they are in India —
that is to say, there is absolutely no community of ideas or sympathy on
either side. Broadwood and one or two of them try to be polite and
kind, but they know so little Arabic, and have so little knowledge of
Eastern good manners that they are unintentionally rude and inspire
no affection, only just such respect as their power to reward and
punish gives. They would be deserted, I am sure, by their men if it
came to any real difficulty. They seem to feel their position rather
a precarious one, and would all leave the Khedive's service if the British
occupation ceased.
*' 11th Nov, — Arrived at Korosko at four. Walked to the top of
the hill overlooking the road to Abu Hamid, the road Gordon took on
his last journey. It is a rough bit of country, a wilderness of black
wadies and ravines which extends they say for twenty miles, when the
open plain or plateau begins. The young engineers pointed out the
road of their new railway.
" Dined at the Egyptian officers* mess. Here at Korosko the bat-
talion is wholly Egyptian, a really capital set of fellah officers com-
manded by Fathy Bey, a big fellah Colonel reminding me not a little
of Arabi in 1881. They mess together and live on the friendliest
terms ; and here, entertaining Lewis and me, and the two young engi-
neers, their demeanour was quite different from what I had noticed at
Haifa, and they seemed to be most pleasant in their relations with the
English officers. At Haifa they chafe at being under them. Here
they are on an equal footing. I sat between Fathy Bey and a captain,
Emir Eff. Fowzi, the latter a very good fellow with whom I talked
Digitized by
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much in Arabic about affairs in Arabia, at Constantinople, and in
India, and in Tunis. He had just been on the pilgrimage and com-
plained greatly of the Ottoman misgovemment there. We also talked
about Arabi, and I was pleased when Fathy Bey, who joined our con-
versation, expressed himself warmly abotft Arabi, and in favour of his
being allowed to return to Egypt.
**i2th Nov, — Arrived early at Shellall, and descended the cataract
in a feluka — no very hazardous affair. Lunched at Assouan with
the English mess and met there Beshir Bey and Ahmed Bey Khalifa of
the Ababdeh. Then on board the steamer for Cairo.
" 13th Nov. — We stopped two hours at Edf u, which gave us time
to see the temple, the most perfect in Egypt. Indeed, ?t might be * re-
stored to public worship ' without the smallest repair. Mere ruins are
tiresome, but this is not one. We have half-a-dozen tourists on board,
the fir^ of the season — Dr. Ruffer and his wife, a Spanish diplo-
matist from Constantinople, an old Frenchwoman, and an English
geologist. Stopped at Esneh, where there is a temple partly under-
ground, and arrived at Luxor, and for the night, Kus.
''Nov. 14th, — A quite cold morning with clouds to the west and
a feeling of dampness in the air. There has probably been rain at
Alexandria, and very likely a southwest gale in the Mediterranean,
where Anne and Judith are to embark to-day. Arrived at Girgeh,
where our few passengers got out; but I have decided to go on to
Cairo by steamer with the Ruffers. A wonderful sunset, followed
by thunder and lightning and some rain — this off Ahmim, a very
beautiful part of the river. The night too dark to go on, so after
running aground, we stopped for the rest of it.
" isth Nov. — I have had much talk with Dr. Ruffer, who is a su-
perior man of science. He was for two years a pupil of Pasteur at
Paris, and speaks of him with enthusiasm. He tells me that Pasteur
had a physical dislike for surgical operations and, he believes, never
was present at the experimental ones made on live animals. But he
did not hesitate to have them performed by others. I asked him how
much truth there was in the accusations made again^ him of having
kept dogs for months under torture, and he said that Pasteur had
made a mistake in experimenting on dogs for hydrophobia, as they
were much more dangerous to handle ; that it had now been found that
all the symptoms of hydrophobia could be equally well studied in
rabbits ; that, after inoculating dogs with the disease, it was necessary
to keep them and watch whether or not they went mad, and so he
had kept some of them for years, but that they were well treated — some
twenty-five of them at the time he was there. He said it was a choice
between making experiments of this kind and not proceeding with
the inquiry. But I gather from him that he is not certain whether
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204 Nubar Pasha Resigns [i895
the object has been obtained. The dii&culty of being certain was that
only some fifteen per cent, of cases of bJtes from a certainly mad dog
led to hydrophobia. He talked of Pasteur as the one great man of
Science France had produced. He described him as a most simple-
minded man, entirely destitute of humour, and incapable of thinking
about more than one thing at a time. If you started him on a conversa-
tion he could not change the subject till he had exhausted it. This
was the secret of his success. His mind was not a French one.
*' Dr. RufFer is at the head of the Pasteur Institute of London. He
tells me he is only thirty-six, though he has grey hair and looks fifty.
But he was junior to George Curzon when at Oxford, so I suppose he
is of the age he says. More thunder and lightning in the evening,
away to the north-west There must have been heavy rain in Jendali
and probably on all the hills between the Nile and the Red Sea. It is
cold and damp and raw. I am getting weary of the Nile and cannot
understand the patience of travelers not invalids who travel on it in
dahabiyahs. We stopped at Beni Hassan, but I did not go ashore, as
I draw the line at tombs. Beni Hassan, however, might, I think, be
a good point of departure fDr our winter's journey. Farther down
the river there are impassable places where rocks come down to the
water's edge.
" i6th Nov, — Arrived at Cairo in the afternoon, and glad to get
home. The Lower River seems to me vastly superior to the Upper,
and has a familiar and pleasant aspect. I had the rare pleasure of
seeing a real seyl come down into the Nile some forty yards across,
and strong and deep enough to carry away a camel — a great turbid
flood whidi had broken through the Nile bank and was rushing some
two hundred yards out into the river. It must have come from Wady
Senhur, a few miles south of Wasta.
" There has been an earthquake at Rome and a change of Ministry
at Cairo. Nubar, the old rogue, has retired, and Mustafa Fehmy is put
into his place.
" It was dark before I got to Sheykh Obeyd, and I had some difficulty
in making myself heard at the gate, but all is well. El hamdul iUah!*
The disappearance of Nubar here recorded marks the beginning of
the new rSgime in Egypt which was to last for nearly ten years, during
which Cromer was to be supreme in every branch of the Egjrptian ad-
ministration, governing through merely dummy native Ministers, with
Mustafa Fehmy at their head. Lord Salisbury, now at the head of
a strong Unionist Government in England, had made up his mind at
all hazards to continue the military Occupation and retain Egypt per-
manently as a dependency of the British Empire. He also, though we
did not know it at the time, had a settled design of avenging the death
Digitized by
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of Gordon and the disgrace of Wolsele3r*s defeat by the Mahdi in 1884
as one of the two matters necessary for England's honour, the other
being the defeat at Majuba in South Africa. We know this from his
own boast in 1902, shortly before he retired from public life, and we
have every reason to be sure that at the back of his determination on
bo^h points stood his mistress, Queen Victoria. The present chapter
will show the first steps taken in accordance with this policy on the Nile,
in its commencement not altogether with Lord Cromer^s approval, his
objection to it being a financial one, as certain to overburden the
Eyptian Budgelt, and as such premature, but, as will be seen, his opposi-
tion on this head was overruled from Downing Street and financial
caution, in large measure overcome by the parsimonious ability of
Lord Kitchener, to whom the advance up the Nile was entrusted, and
who ran it on the cheap.
" Having made this brief explanation I resume my diary.
" 17^/1 Nov. — There have been tremendous seyls all round Sheykh
Obeyd. Part; of our garden wall is broken down by it and the house
at El Kheysheh flooded, though no great damage done. Suliman
Howeyti had his tent carried away just outside. At Kafr el
Jamus eleven houses are ruined, and at Koubba a great seyl from the
hills broke through the old railway embankment and destroyed fifty
houses and a French public garden, threatening even the Palace with
flood. The like has never been seen before. Old Deifallah is dying
of old age, like Job, on a dung-hill outside Dormer's garden wall.
" Things have gone rapidly in Turkey during the last three weeks.
Disfturbances everywhere in the provinces, the devil generally let loose.
*'20th Nov. — Anne, Judith, and Cowie arrived at Sheykh Obeyd.
I dined with Dormer last night.
" 2Sth Nov. — I wrote yesterday to Lord Cromer about the permis-
sion asked by the Dongola people to return to their homes. I said that
the sftory they gave me was that they had emigrated into Egjrpt after
the Mahdi's death to escape the tyranny of the Baggara chiefs who
represented the Khalifa's government at Dongola; that they assured
me that they would be subject to no vexation now ; tiiat living there was
cheap and land plentiful ; that I had mentioned their case to the Com-
mandant at Wady Haifa, who had told me that the chief reason for
the prohibition was a fear that the return of the refugees would hamper
and endanger the spies sent by the Intelligence Department, but that
this seemed hardly a sufficient reason for retaining in Egjrpt so many
persons who were a burden and a trouble. I suggested that perhaps
the time was come when the question might be reconsidered; there
seemed to be no immediate prospect of a military advance and the cir-
cumstances of the case had changed since the frontier regulations were
enacted.
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2o6 Nejd Politics [1895
"Today I went to Cairo and saw Lord Cromer, who told me he
had forwarded my letter to Kitchener and would let me know when
his answer was received. He then talked of other matters and of the
possibility of Mohammed Abdu being named head of the Awkaf.
This I, of course, strongly commended. I also saw Gorst.
"30fA Nov, — Started with Anne for the eastern desert. On our
return.
"3rd Dec. — Found a letter from George Wyndham with an ac-
count of little Percy's accident, touchingly told.
** yth Dec. — A visit from Ibrahim ibn Abdallah Thenneyan ibn
Saoud el Nejdi who has just escaped from Constantinople. He gave
much interesting information. The Sultan is now entirely under the in-
fluence of Sheykh Abul Huda; and Jemal ed Din is never received at
the palace. Things are going as badly there as possible. He has come
to Cairo, hoping through the Khedive's influence to get bkck to Nejd.
His father's grandfather, Thenneyan, was for a couple of years Emir
of Nejd, while Feysul was in captivity at Dar el Beyda. But when
Feysul escaped and returned to Nejd, he and his family were driven to
Bagdad. Speaking of the Ananzeh he assured me their migration
North dated from 200 or 300 years ago. The Ibn Saouds are of Ana-
zeh stock.
" I2th Dec. — I have written another long letter to Cromer about the
return of the refugees to Dongola. Kitchener, in reply to my first
letter, declared the road to be open to them via Assouan and Berber.
That would give them a journey of 1,000 miles to accomplish the 100
miles which separate them at Sarras from their homes. He pretends,
too, that the Dervishes are threatening the frontier. Our people are
humbugs about this almost more than about an3rthing else. The officers
when I was there were all complaining that there was nothing for them
to do on the frontier if the Dervishes would make no move.
"We went to-day to look at some desert land 280 feddans out-
side Kafr el Shorafa, for sale by the Government at 50 piastres the
feddan, for first price. I would give i2. Ibrahim ibn Saoud came
to-day to luncheon. He had been to the palace. He asked me for a
letter to Lord Cromer, explaining that his business was to invite
English protection for Nejd. He declared that six months ago Fawzi
Pasha, Turkish Waly of El Hasa, received orders from the Ottoman
Government to send an expedition to take over the Government of
Riad and El Haryk. Fawzi was a Syrian, knew Arabic, and would
have been able to effect his purpose through the Arab tribes. Cor-
respondence had passed between the Sultan and Ibn Rashid, who had
consented to the aggression. Now, however, Ibrahim would wish, the
British Government to undertake a protectorate as at Bahre)m and Mus-
cat — at least to forbid the Turkish advance inland. I gave him the
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i89Sl Italian Defeat in Abyssinia 207
letter, but warned him not to trust too much to English magnanimity.
If we once got our foot into Nejd, it would be difficult to geft us out
again. Perhaps the Turks might be worse, but we were dangerous too.
For that matter the Ottoman Empire was too near its dissoltftion to
think just now of any forward movement. Neither was it in the least
probable that England would undertake a protectorate or do anything:
His seeing Cromer cannot do much harm. So I gave him the letter.
" There is news of a great defeat of the Italians by the Abyssinians.
I am much pleased at this, as their aggression has been one of the
most abominable of our abominable age. Perhaps now the Dervishes
may drive them out of Kassala." This was the least excusable of the
many lawless raids made by the Italians in Africa, prompted in part
by the vanity of the parvenu kingdom of Italy to show itself as aggres-
sive as its older neighbours, France and England, partly by mining
speculation. Unlike most of these raids undertaken by the Christian
nations in our time, it had not even the excuse of calling itself a cru-
sade, seeing that the Abyssinians were themselves Christians, of a
wild, old-fashioned kind, but still just as much Christians as the inhabi-
tants of Calabria, while, compared with the Abyssinian Emperor who
is lineally descended from the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon, the
House of Savoy enthroned at the Quirinal is btft a stem of yesterday,
yet not a shadow of reproof was uttered by our statesmen in Downing
Street, and the general remark about the Italian expedition in the
London Press was that the ending of the Abyssinian monarchy would
not be * felt upon the Stock Exchange.'
" i6th Dec. — Went in to Cairo to see the Khedive. He was very
cordial as usual, and made me a number of confidences, some very in-
teresting. He told me the full story of his visit to Constantinople
this summer. His object, he says, was not a political one, but to get
perpiission from the Sultan to build a house on the island of Thasos
where, and at Kavala, he has the direction of the Awkaf . He wanted
a place to spend the summer in with his wife and child, instead of
going to Europe. He went to Stambotjl in his yacht, and found it so
pleasarft there that he stayed two months. The Sultan was polite to
him, and asked him constantly to dinner, and to hear music, but would
not talk business. At last he got tired of waiting, and sent word that
he wanted permission to go to Thasos, and also to lay ceitain papers
before the Sultan connected with the Halim succession and the claim
of the Azhar University to a part of it. But he got a number of
evasive answers. At one time he was *told 'yes* — at another that
the Sultan had a cold and could not see him — at another that he had
bad eyes and could not read the papers — and other foolish excuses.
In the meantime he had been dogged by spies, and on one occasion
when he had made an arrangemetft privately to see Sheykh Jemal ed
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2o8 Abbas and the Sultan [1895
Din he had been followed so closely that he had turned on the spy and
beaten him, and had sent a message to the palace that if he was thus
annoyed again he would shoot his persecutors.
" At last a day of audience was fixed with the Sultan for him to
say 'good-bye.' But after being kept waiting for an hour, Osman
Pasha came to him and began to talk about the Thasos plan, and to
try and dissuade him. At this he lost patience, and asked Osman
straight whether he had been sent with the message from the Sultan,
and, on his admitting it, he spoke his whole mind. ' I told him,'
said the Khedive, * that I was tired of the Sultan's way of treating me,
that I had been not yet four years on the throne, and I had come three
times to Constantinople to see him, which was more than any of my
predecessors had done, and yet he had not spoken to me a reasonable
word. My great-great-grandfather, I told him, Mohammed Ali, had
never gone to Constantinople, though he was near it once, by way of
Nezim and Koniah. My great-grandfather Ibrahim had never been,
though he had a stronger army than the Sultan's. My father was
eleven years oh the throne, and he never went. I alone went, to do
the Sultan pleasure. I even, to please him, gave up last year my visit
to England. Her Majesty the Queen, who is Empress of India and
300 millions of subjects, and on whose dominions the sun never sets,
had done me the honor of inviting me, and I had accepted the invita-
tion ; yet, on account of a miserable bit of paper, a telegram from Con-
stantinople, I broke my engagement and went to the Sultan instead. I
am tired of this. You may tell the Sultan that this year I will not go
to Thasos, but for the future I shall know how to regulate my conduct
towards him. While talking thus — and I never talked so strongly
in my life — Nuri Bey joined us, and he and Osman were horror-
struck at my words, and shook with fear, and werft at once to the Sul-
tan, who sent for me and apologized and loaded me with civilities.
But I told him that it was no case for apologies, tha'fc I understood now
what his diplomacy was, and that I should return to my own country,
and forget as far as possible that I stood to him in the relation of a sub-
ject. And so it has been. From that day to this I have cut the Sul-
tan's name out of my prayer ; I have never been to the mosque where
the prayer for the Sultan is made, and, when I pray in my own mosque
at Koubba, my chaplain omits the Sultan's name. We pray for " the
-welfare of Islam and all believers, but not for those (he quoted the
words in Arabic) who are bringing Islam to its ruin." '
" I am not sure that I have quoted the Khedive quite verbally, bufe
this is the sense of his words. He spoke with animation, and told the
story admirably. He told me 'also that he had seen Abdallah Nadim *
at C6nstarftinople> and that he was allowing him to return to Egypt
1 See " Secret History."
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1895] Wingate and Statin 209
Of the prospects of G>nstantinople he said he feared the Sultanas sub-
jects would never succeed in getting rid of him, though the European
Powers might depose him. He asked me about affairs in Arabia, and
told me he had seen Ibrahim ibn Thenneyan, but Sheykh Mohammed
Abdu had warned him that he was perhaps a spy of Sheykh Abul
Huda's. I told him that I did not think this to be the case, though it
might be well to be cautious. Then he talked about the desert, and
an expedition he intended to make to El Arish in the Spring, and how
he was having the post road repaired to Dar el Beyda. He certainly
is a charming young man, and brim full of intelligence.
" I lunched with Gorst and talked to him about the affairs of the
Soudan. He told me, as an instance of the humbug that went on at
the frontier, of the way in which Wingate had got the credit of Slatin's
escape from Khartoum. This has been represented as entirely Win-
gate's cleverness, whereas in point of fact Wingate was away at the
time at Souakim, and the plan was Slatin's own. Maxwell (?), who
was in charge of Wady Haifa, received a letter from Slatin, addressed
to whoever was in command, asking him to pay the bearer £100, and
to promise another iioo in case of success. This Maxwell had done,
but nothing more was thought about it till Slatin arrived and embraced
Wingate, who had meanwhile returned, calling him his deliverer. Win-
gate then looked up the papers for the first time, and promptly endorsed
them, * I approve.' There has been a raid quite recently, thirty miles
north of Wady Haifa, and sixteen persons have been killed in a village.
" Left a card on the French Minister, M. Cogordan, who sent me
a message last summer through Mile. Lagren6 that he would like
to see me.
" igth Dec.—:- Eldon Gorst came, with his sister, to spend the day.
We took them to the sand hills and set up a shelter and lunched there.
I had a good deal of talk with Gorst. He is a worthy young man, very
painstaking and desirous to do rightly, but hardly a man of genius.
One does not understand why he should have been chosen, out of the
many thousand young men whose services are to be had, to be Prime
Minister of Egypt. I imagine that he would command at home per-
haps £400 or £500 a year. But this is one of the mysteries of Anglo-
Eg)rptian rule. He has a moderate knowledge of Arabic, having served
an apprenticeship under Cromer. The fact is, there is no country so
easy to govern as Egypt is, given fair intelligence and perfect honesty
in the governor.
"21st Dec. — M. Cogordan, with his secretary, lunched with us.
Cogordan is a man of about forty, of good presence and manners
and very amiable. We sat on the roof after luncheon and I took the
opportunity of explaining to him something of the history of Arabi's
revolution, as to which the French have the absurdest ideas. The
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210 Ali Sherifs Horses [1895
origin of my calling on him and of his visit was a message I received
in the summer from Mile, de Lagrene, saying he wished to make my
acquaintance. Of current politics we talked little, except as to the
Khedive's character, which he praised highly.
" 24th Dec. — Kitchener gives a final answer about the refugees, re-
fusing on the ground that he does not wish the district re-peopled, for
fear it should serve as a basis for Dervish raids. Rubbish!
" There is a fine quarrel on between England and the United States
about Venezuela. Lord Salisbury is getting into nice hot water. He
has a war with Ashanti of the most causeless kind. His diplomacy
at Constantinople has entirely broken down, as the Turks are mas-
sacring the Armenians worse than ever — and now he will have to
fight or sing small — doubtless sing small — in America. I should
not be surprised to see the Egyptian question raised at any moment as
a European one.
" 2gth Dec. — Went in to Cairo yesterday to see Ali Pasha Sherifs
horses. They showed us half-a-dozen which !were for sale. We shall
bid for two, a chestnut colt, two years old, very like Mesaoud, and a
grey filly, a Jellabieh, also a two-year-ol^. We did not see the best
mares, but we saw the stallions. They have nothing left now but Aziz,
aged nineteen, Ibn Nadir, aged twenty-four, and Ibn Sherara, also an
old horse. They are terribly in want of new blood.
" Ali Pasha Sherif has had a decree of interdiction passed on him
as incapable of the management of his affairs, and Shakir Pasha is
appointed Wakil. He has quarrelled with his seven sons and receives
an allowance of £500 a year. Such is the position of the man who a
year ago was President of the Legislative Council, by favour of the
late Khedive Tewfik and Lord Cromer.
" Afterwards to call on Riaz, whom I found with Tigrane, showing
him his estate accounts at Melhallet el Roh. These bring him in £10
an acre, gross — expenses of cultivation £4 and tax £1. Net income £5
an acre. He reviewed the state of agricultural things since he had
first been in the Government service in 1850. He said that the wars
of Mohammed Ali had ruined the country, much of which had gone
out of cultivation, but that under Abbas and Said the population had
nearly doubled. The taxation was then one third what it is now.
Everyone was well off. Then Ismail ruined it again. The price of
land went up after his deposition and stood in 1880 at its highest. It
was going down now with the fall in prices of produce. On the other
hand the public expenditure had increased since the English occupa-
tion by two millions a year, and ten millions capital had been added
to the debt."
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CHAPTER XI
THE JAMESON RAID
^ 5th Jan. — There is excellent news. Those blackguards of the
Qiartered Company in South Africa, under Doctor Jameson, have made
a filibustering raid on the Transvaal and have been annihilated by the
Boers, Jameson a prisoner. I devoutly hope he may be hanged. I
have seen this business coming on for some weeks past in articles from
the 'Times/ That other high-placed filibuster. Chamberlain, is, I
am sure, responsible, or the * Times ' would never have taken up the
matter in the way it has. They seem to have been encouraged in the
sort of way these things are encouraged unofficially, by Chamberlain,
who would have scored a victory for himself if they had succeeded. As
it is he will disavow them. I am much mistaken if Chamberlain, with
his three Colonial wars on hand in Ashanti, Venezuela, and now in
the Transvaal, involving quarrels with France, America, and Ger-
many, will not upset Lord Salisbury's government, if he does not upset
the British Empire.
" Lord and Lady Cromer came here to tea. I had a good deal of
talk with him. He says the Jameson episode will do a ' deal of harm '
here, as people will consider it a British defeat (which it is). He
added: 'These filibustering enterprises are only justifiable by suc-
cess. I don't say that they are justifiable at all, but if they don't suc-
ceed the actors in them should pay the penalty.' I think he is rather
uneasy in his mind. We talked also about Egyptian affairs. He told
me the Khedive was spending money very foolishly and would soon,
at the present rate, be bankrupt, also that complaints had been made
to him by f ellahin in the neighbourhood of Koubbah, whose land he had
been attempting to take, reviving obsolete claims against squatters on
abandoned land, but he was not sure the complaints were true, the
complainants refusing to come forward openly. They stated that they
had been bullied by the palace people and beaten with kurbajs. He
asked me if I had received complaints on the subject, but it is new to
me. He told me that Ibrahim Bey Ibn Saoud had been to him twice, the
first time to evoke his protection against the Sultan, to which he had
replied that, as long as he, Ibrahim Bey, remained unamenable to Eg3rp-
tian law he had nothing to fear. The second time he had brought him
a ' ridiculous paper/ the copy of one he had submitted to the Khedive,
dxx
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212 Alfred Austin Laureate [1896
chaining the Sultan with all sorts of crimes, and appealing to the
Khedive to occupy Nejd. He had had to give him 'a piece of his
mind^ and tell him that if he meddled with politics and the Sultan
heard of it and demanded his extradition, he should not interfere to
protect him; if he wanted to talk Arabian politics he had better go
to Bagdad.
"We also discussed the appointment of Alfred Austin to the post
of Poet Laureate. He, Cromer, thought William Watson would have
been better. The Empress Frederick had tried to get Rennell Rodd
appointed. He had never heard of Austin. Indeed, Austin's appoint-
ment is a ridiculous one, for, with the exception of three sonnets,
Austin has never written anything in the smallest degree good. His
sole claim is that he has been a solid supporter of the Conservative
party in the press. I remember him well as a young man about thirty-
eight years ago, when he first came up to London and published his ear-
liest verses, ' The Season, a Satire,' and the rest. Some of them rather
smart. He was a Catholic and moved in a small way in Catholic soci-
ety, but later married an Irish Protestant and, I believe, joined the
English church. He was the most absurd little cock sparrow of a
man ever seen, and childishly vain of his talents. He has improved
with years, but not in his verses. His principal poem, ' Madonna's
Child,' is about the dullest and silliest tale in meagre blank verse ever
produced. He has floated in at last to the Laureateship on the suc-
cess of a prose volume about his garden in Kent. There really was no
choice, however, for the post. William Morris refused, the Queta ob-
jected to Swinburne, old Patmore was a Catholic, the rest were, if pos-
sible, worse than Austin. He is better anyhow than Lewis Morris, the
Liberal candidate, or than Watson, Dobson, Davidson, and the rest of
the sons of their own penny trumpets.
"gth Jan, — ^The German Emperor has telegraphed his congratula-
tions to Kruger, and this seems to have produced great anger in Eng-
land. We have now managed in the last six months to quarrel violently
with China, Turkey, Belgium, Ashanti, France, Venezuela, America,
and Germany. This is a record performance, and if it does not break
up the British Empire nothing will. For myself I am glad of it all,
for the British Empire is the great engine of evil for the weak races
now existing in the world — not that we are worse than the French
or Italians or Americans — indeed, we are less actively destructive —
but we do it over a far wider area and more successfully./ I should
be delighted to see England stripped of her whole foreign possessions.
We were better off and more respected in Queen Elizabeth's time, the
' spacious days,' when we had not a stick of territory outside the British
Islands, than now, and infinitely more respectable. The gangrene of
colonial rowd3rism is infecting us, and the habit of repressing liberty
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in weak nations is endangering our own. I should be glad to see the
end.
" My old woodreeve, Bates, at Crabbdk has hanged himself in his
cart shed — a man of genius in his way of life, who, beginning as a
day labourer, rose to be the best judge of timber in Sussex, as well
as a successful farmer and churchwarden of the parish. Having
completed eighty-four years of life and fifty of honest service in the
Crabbet Estate, and having entertained his friends the night before,
he werft out in the early morning to his shed and was found there dead
hanging from a beam. I can imagine the old man carefully tying the
noose, as his manner was, without mistake. It was noticed by those
who had been with him at dinner the night before that during the
meal he had a hank of rope on his knees with which he was pla3ang.
In the morning he had got up by candlelight, asked his old wife ' How
are you, old girl ? ' and had gone out to the cart shed, where he was
found hanging.
"nth Jan. — Took Anne and Judith to Koubbah to see the Khedive.
He received us with great empressement, talked a good deal about the
petty vexations and the affronts put upon him by the English officials,
and showed us his stud. He has got together some nice mares, but
nothing quite first class, except two of Ali Pasha Sherif's, one of which
is our horse Mesaoud's dam, a very splendid mare, with the finest
head in the world. He has bred some promising colts and altogether
the thing is well done. He invited us to go out with him some day 00
a desert expedition, and sent us to the station in his barouche.
" There seems a good chance now of the Egyptian question being
re-opened as a European one, for the feeling against us in Germany
is very strong over the Transvaal affair, and Egypt is the point where
they can best put on the screw. I am sorry it should come in this way,
though ?t is what I have always foreseen, for Egjrpt internationalized
to the profit of Europe is not a pleasant prospect. It comes of
Cromer's wrong-headed adminstration, where the one object has been
to Anglicize, not to establish a National Government. Egypt, too, has
been scandalously used for the creation of highly paid posts for not
very capable Englishmen. I foresaw all this and protested years ago,
but it was of no use. Now we shall evacuate the country not for the
benefit of the Egyptians, but for that of the scoundrel European Colo-
nies.
" Yesterday Dawkins and his wife w^re here — he a new man sent
in miner's place, and a friend of Milner's. I talked to him a good
deal about Cromer's policy, in which I think he partially agreed with
me, as they all do when it is plainly put before them that we cannot
stay on for ever in Egypt. But, when things are quiet, and they see a
chance of holding on, then they harden their hearts.
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214 Swagger and Poltroonery [io5"
" i$th Jan. — I see in the papers that negotiations are likely to com6
on between our Government and the French about Egypt. I have
therefore put my ideas about a possible agreement for evacuation on
paper, and shall probably send it to Lord Salisbury through Pom Mc-
Donnell. It ought to be a quite easy thing to arrange if only Lord
Salisbury was willing. His great necessities just now should be our
occasion.
" 16th Jan, — Mohammed Abdu and M. Arminjan to luncheon. I
talked the matter of evacuation over thoroughly with Abdu. He tells
me that, much as he is attached to the Khedive, it would not do to trust
him with power — the Ministry should be independent of him as far
as possible, and supported by some sort of Constitution. He thinks
this essential. There are good men to be found who would hold their
own as ministers against Khedivial encroachment, but not the men now
in office, who are mere dummies. The ministers ought to be irremova-
ble as long as they have the support of the Chamber of Deptities. If
we could get the French to agree to this, evacuation would be quite
simple. It really looks as if it might come. Lord Salisbury has quar-
relled with everybody, and it is about time he should patch up matters
with some of them — and France is the most dangerous. I should
prefer, myself, to see the British Empire break up. It has become a
curse to the world, but, for Eg3rpt*s sake, an arrangement with France
would be better at the present moment.
" 2yd Jan, — The English papers are sickening about the Transvaal,
a mixture of swagger and poltroonery. One would have thought the
less said about Jameson's ignominious defeat by the Boers the better,
but our blessed public must needs make a hero of him, a man who
fought for thirty-six hours, and had only fifteen men killed and then
surrendered, ndt a pretence of its being in any better cause than money-
making and land-grabbing. The * Times ' prints a poem in praise of
him by the new Poet Laureate. Austin has managed to turn off some
spirited doggerel, and to get it recited at a music hall, so low are we
sunk. / I have been busy writing my letter to McDonnell, and also finish-
ing my article about the evacuation of Egypt for the ' Nineteenth Cen-
tury.'
" We have had several visitors here. Madame d'Hautpoul and her
cousin, Miss Pereira, Lady Dedes and a pretty daughter, and Mr.
Douglas Murray. The latter told me one or two new things about
Egyptian history. Lesseps had told him that ?t was he who dissuaded
the French Government from joining in the bombardment of Alex-
andria or occupying the Suez Canal, thinking that the English would
get into military difficulties ; also that when our fleet entered the Canal,
Admiral Hoskins threatened Victor Lesseps to hang him from the yard-
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arm if he interfered with the operations. Lesseps was a vain old
fool.
" 25^/1 Jan. — Lady Gallo.way has arrived at Cairo. I went in to see
her at the Legation, where she is staying with the Cromers. She told
me that it was out of the question to think of our evacuating Egypt,
that if we went out the French would come in, or there would be mas-<
sacres and a lot more rubbish, which I fear represents Lord Salisbury's
view. She also blamed Rosebery for the Armenian policy, but excused
Lord Salisbury for continuing it on the ground that he had a real sym-
pathy for Armenia, and real hatred for the Turks. The Russo-Turkish
alliance is announced by the * Pall Mall,' it cannot but be true. I fancy
the Russian Government is glad to ally itself with a fellow suppressor
of Nihilism, whether Russian or Armenian. The Armenians seem
likely now to be exterminated between them, our Government playing
the most foolish figure imaginable. Lady Galloway is coming to
Sheykh Obeyd on Monday.
" 27th Jan. — Lady Galloway was here for luncheon to-day. I have
written my memorandum on the evacuation of Egypt, and am sending
it to Lord Salisbury through Pom McDonnell. In my letter to Pom I
say : ' I have drawn it up very carefully, and after consultation with
some of my Egyptian friends, who best know the situation, and in whom
I have most confidence as honest and patriotic men. I have also some
reason to believe that Monsieur Cogordan, the present French Min-
ister, would enter iifto some such plan were it suggested to him. He
is a far fairer and more intelligent man than any of his predecessors
here. I have said nothing of it, however, directly to him, as I only
know him very slightly. You know how anjcious I am that Egypt
should be allowed to work out her political destiny in peace, and I fore-
see that if Lord Salisbury does nothing towards a solution of the ques-
tion now, it will be forced upon him later in a way which will lead to
the sacrifice of all Egyptian hopes. With the support of Germany
withdrawn from our occupation, it is impossible that Europe should
long delay making the question its own. This sensible Egjrptians fear
as a worse evil than anything in their present condition, for it would
mean Egypt for all the speculators of Europe.'
" Our policy at Constantinople has certainly gone an absolute smash,
and Philip must be feeling small. A treaty is announced beftween
Russia and Turkey, which, whether quite true or not, must be very near
the trtith. I strongly suspect that the famous incident of Said Pasha
taking refuge at the British Embassy was an ingenious trick to spy
out the real ideas of the Ambassador. Said may very well have gone
there with the knowledge and privity of the Sultan, and the result may
have convinced the Sultan that England was his bitteresft personal en-
Digitized by
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2i6 A Long Desert Journey [1896
emy. Certainly from the day of Said's return to his own house things
have altered at Constantinople, and the Sultan has gone his own way
without seeking any more to be on 'terms with us.*
" y>th Jan, — Anne and I start on Monday for a considerable journey
in the southern desert beyond Kalala. Judith goes up the NUe with
Lady Decies, and Sheykh Obeyd will be shut up. I feel better and in
better spirits, though the future is dark for me. If this next summer
brings me nothing of value to my life I shall not return to England
again. Perhaps I may find my hermitage this Spring in truth and
reality, but I must go to England once again first, to solve one or two
questions and complete my memoirs.
" yd Feb. — Our party at Sheykh Obeyd is broken up. Judith went
this morning to Cairo, and will stay there till she starts up the Nile.
Anne and I leave to-morrow for our long desert journey, it ought to
be an interesting one. I went to-day to the War Office, and saw
Wingate, and looked over maps with him. I find that almost nothing is
known of the country south of Kalala, so that we shall be exploring a
new region. I have taken tracings of such- maps as they have in the
Intelligence Department, and they are not much. Floyer has also sent
me tracings. I had some talk with Slatin, a commonplace little Ger-
man, quite unworthy of ever having served the Mahdi. He talked a
great deal about the prospects of reconquering the Soudan. I have
been reading Kipling's new ' Jungle Book,' and the story of the Indian
Minister who became a fakir. It seems to me the only worthy ending
of a public, perhaps of a private life ; but it wants great physical cour-
age to endure."
February 4th to 26th in my journal is taken up with the diary of a
camel journey made by Anne and me, with Suliman Howeyti and two
other Bedouins of the Howeytat, under the guidance of Sobeyeh Ibn
Zeydan of the Maaze tribe, through the Maaze country south of the
Kalala mountains to the granite range of Jebel Ghareb southwards to
Ktifra, Dokhan, and Kitar, regaining the Nile at Keneh, a journey of
400 miles of uninhabited desert, made in twenty days, of the greatest
possible interest. My diary, however, is little more than an itinerary of
each day's march, suited rather for a paper in the Royal Geographical
Society than for the present volume, and I do not transcribe it here.
It was for the most part through an entirely unexplored and unmapped
region. We returned from Keneh by steamer to Cairo. All that I
will say of it here is that it was the last and perhaps the hardest of all
the many desert journeys Lady Anne and I undertook alone together,
and as such stands out in my memory as one of the most delightful. I
made a rough map of our route for private use, not for the Geographical
Society (of which I am almost the oldest member), because I have
1 Compare Dr. Dillon's " Edipse of Russia."
Digitized by
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1896] Italian Defeat in Abyssinia 217
long convinced myself that it makes itself the precursor and instrument
of Europe's penetrations and conquests against the wild races of man-
kind.
" yth March. — Back at Sheykh Obeyd. Great things have happened
since we were away. First and foremost the Italians have been
smashed in Abyssinia, thoroughly and I hope finally. They have most
richly deserved it. The whole history of their doings on the Red Sea
has been a disgrace even to this graceless nineteenth cerftury. They
went there at our bidding in 1884, a job of Lord Northbrook's when
we were in straits with the Mahdi and thought they might help us. We
gave them Massowa, which did not belong to us, but to Egypt, Egypt,
of which we said we were acting as guardians and trustees. At first
they occupied the island only, then little by little they encroached upon
the mainland on the plea of wanting a hill Nation, then they made
leonine treaties with the king and encroached more and more, and then
they put forward pretensions for a protectorate. Next they made a
dash at Kassala and captured it from the Soudanese. This turned their
vanitous heads, and nothing would serve them but they must make war
again with Menelik, wanting to grab the whole country. Menelik pre-
tended to yield, for the Abyssinians are cunning, but let loose an army
of Chouans upon them. The Italians were defeated and shut up in a
fortress. The fortress was invested and at last capitulated on good
terms granted them by Menelik, who, though victorious, asked for
peace. His magnanimity, however, was put down at once in Italy to
cowardice, the ' heroic ' Italian defenders of the fortress were treated
as if they had been conquerors, and pretensions were put forward of
annexing the whole of Abyssinia, Menelik, however, calmly went on,
all sections of the Abyssinians joining him, and proposed as an alterna-
tive condition of peace, that the Italians should return to their original
quarters at Massowa ; and war was renewed. The Italians then sent
50,000 men from Italy, but their General would not wait for the sup-
ports, fearing to be superseded, and with 15,000 men gave battle, and
has now been entirely destroyed. The Italians have lost 60 cannons
and 10,000 men, all most probably killed, and are being swept into the
sea. This is a righteous ending to their iniquities. It is enough to
make one repent of ever having wasted sympathy on liberty, to see
these Italians, hardly released from their Austrian bondage, counting
it a glory for their mushroom kingdom of Italy to attack and enslave the
oldest free people and kingdom in the world — for the Abyssinian mon-
archy dates from before the time of King Solomon — and there was
not a voice in Europe to cry shame I All the English papers applauded.
' The wiping out of the little kingdom of Abyssinia won't make much
difference,' they said, * on the Stock Exchange.* But for once Provi-
dence has answered 'No.' Crispi, the Italian minister, formerly a
Digitized by
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2i8 Jameson Fifed in London [189S
revolutionist, now a renegade tyrant, has fallen. He will be lucky if
he does not get torn to pieces in the streets, and it will fare hard with
the Italian monarchy. The Duke of Sermoneta, who was at Cairo
amusing himself, has been sent for to Rome. He has always been an
opponent of the Colonial policy, but he will be too late even if they
make him minister.
"Next the Transvaal business has developed. Jameson and his
band have been feted in London, and old Kruger must, I think, be sorry
he did not hang them. It would have been the best policy, for English-
men are cowards in the face of hanging, and we should have had no
more filibustering for at least a generation. Rhodes, too, has been to
England, and seems to have squared the Opposition. The inquiry is
to be put off, and, if possible, shirked, and I fancy Chamberlain has
saved his bacon. It is more obvious, however, than ever that he was
in with Rhodes and Jameson, though possibly they acted without his
exact knowledge at the last moment. But the British public is easily
gulled, and Chamberlain's protestations of innocence have been swal-
lowed even by the opposition papers and Sir William Harcourt. It is
a base world and will not prosper — but it tries one's patience to have to
wait to see the end of it.
" T. P. Gill has been here twice this week. He has come here for his
health and to pick up ideas about evacuation, and I have got him an
audience of the Khedive. He saw Cromer on Thursday, who told him
all the usual ^tory about the wickedness of Abbas and his unfitness to
reign. Gill's impression is that he will try to get him deposed. Cromer
also fancies the French will come to terms which will leave him, Cromer,
still in power here, but this will not be. It seems, however, certain
that negotiations are going on between the French and English govern-
ments relative to the evacuation. McDonnell has acknowledged the
memorandum I sent to Lord Salisbury, who ' thinks I will understand
that he cannot write just now on the subject of it ' — which is the case.
At any rate Lord Salisbury has read it, and that is something.
" Gill was very interesting in his account of Parnell's last days. He
saw much of him in all the time, both before the divorce trial and dur-
ing the party split which followed. It was he who carried on the
negotiations with Dillon and O^Brien when they were at Paris, and he
left the party when these failed. He tells me that Parnell had a com-
plete case in defence against O'Shea, O'Shea having connived through-
out and profited in a money way. The house at Eltham was really
Parnell's, and O'Shea went there to blackmail him. He showed his
whole defence to Gill before the trial. But Mrs. O'Shea would not
allow him to defend himself as she wanted a divorce so as to marry
him. She was a woman quite unworthy of him, who neither sym-
pathized with his politics nor at all appreciated the height of his posi'
Digitized by
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1896] Our Government's Fiasco 219
tion. Later again when Paraell would have agreed to retire for a
while from the party, and was quite willing to make peace, she always
stood in the way of it — and he used to come back from Brighton
changed and uncompromising. Lastly his devotion to her and the
worry of his public life was too much for him, and she really hastened
his end by her exigencies. I asked him whether he committed suicide.
But he was emphatic that it was not so. * Pamell/ he said, * was the
last man in the world to do it. He was a fighter to his la^ breath, and
would not give in. It was the worry and the strain of fighting that
ended him.'
" Evelyn has come and is staying with us.
" I2th March. — Evelyn and Gill have gone. The Armenian Blue
Books are published. They show, as far as I can judge by the extracts
given, that our Government has made a complete diplomatic fiasco.
Philip seems to have had really nothing to go upon for his trust in
Russian and French co-operation, and it has been exactly the old game
of taking a threat to be as good as a blow, which Lord Granville was
so fond of. Of course the whole truth is not given in the Blue Book.
The reason for taking up the que^ion in 1895, rather than at any other
time was, I have no doubt, to make a diversion for the Egyptian ques-
tion. It was probably the reason, too, why Lord Salisbury was so
foolish as to continue his predecessor's error. Nothing can excuse his
having put the threat to Turkey into the Queen's speech if he was not
prepared to act up to it.
" 13^ March. — The English papers have come, telling of the Italian
defeat at Adowa, no trace in any of them of the smallest sympathy with
the Abyssinians or of disapproval of the wanton invasion of their
country. All sense of the rights of weaker nations is lost in Europe
even among the best and most generous of nations.
" 14/A March, — Mohammed Abdu was here to-day and tells me
there is some prospect now of Arabi's being allowed to return first to
Cyprus, then to Egypt. Mustapha Fehmy, the Prime Minister, has
spoken to him about it, and says that Lord Cromer is willing if the
Khedive consents. If this is so the thing ought to be managed.
" iSth March. — Sheykh Saleh, the Sheykh of the muhajjerin, the
refugees from Dongola, called to-day. He says that Kitchener has
told him the Government intends to advance to Abu Hamad and Berber
as soon as the railway is finished to Wady Haifa. This can hardly
be, however, for several years. He assures me the people of Berber
would be willing, and of Abu Hamad, but the Khalifa is sftill powerful.
Berber he declares to be the key of the Soudan, as all roads converge
there.
" 16th March. — It is announced that an advance is to be made im-
mediately to Dongola by arrangement with the German and Austrian
Digitized by
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220 The Advance on Dongola [1896
Governments, so as to make a diversion in favour of the Italians at
Kassala. There is no doubt that troops have been forwarded up the
river for some time past, as long ago as when we were on our way
down from Keneh (a fortnight ago), but the final decision to advance
must have been come to suddenly. Even now I can hardly believe it,
it would be a most flagrant sacrifice of Egyptian for European interests,
although there would probably be little resistance at Dongola ; it must
entail a re-opening of the war with the Soudan, and what has Italy
done for Egypt to deserve Egyptian help?
" 20th March, — I wroPte to the ' Times ' in the sense of my first im-
pression of the affair, but I find that the facts are even more damnit^
to our government than I had supposed, and for once I have done
Cromer an injustice. Anne saw Lady Cromer on Thursday and she
complained bitterly to her of the thing having been decided by Lord
Salisbury 'over Lord Cromer's head,' who had strongly disapproved of
it. Moreover, Mohammed Abdu, who was here yesterday, tells me
that the Egyptian Ministry was also opposed, Mustapha Fehmy saying
that they had no money, and that it was impossible. Even the Khedive,
who was keen on an advance to Dongola two years ago, objected to
fighting for Italy, though I hear from Hadji Mahmoud that His High-
ness is to start up the river the day after to-morrow. Hadji Mahmoud
got the news from Ali Pasha Lalla, and the vice-regal camels have
already been despatched by train to Girgeh. I am sorry he should in-
tend this, as he will get into trouble if he has done it off his own bat,
and if at the suggestion of Kitchener or Cromer they will turn it to
his disadvantage. Mohammed Abdu, however, was to see him to-
morrow, and I hope will give him good advice.
" I sit most of the day at Sheykh Obeyd's tomb, watching the birds
through a glass. There are half-a-dozen kinds nesting in the sont
bushes there : the Nubian shrike, a kind of blackcap with a black throat,
the Palestine redstart, and two small warblers. There are also the
thrush, the Egyptian dove, the crow, a pair of spotted cuckoos, a
hoopoo, and a chat.
"22nd March. — A large party of visitors. Lady Galloway, who
has come back from a journey up the Nile, which she has made with
Lady Jersey. Then the Potocki party, Joseph and his wife, Zamoyski
and his wife, Prince Radziwill and two other Poles. We had tea at
the tomb and showed off the horses.
"It is certain now that Cromer had nothing to do with the new
Soudan campaign, the thing having been arranged between the Em-
peror of Germany and Frank Lascelles (this was the account given me
by our Polish friends). The Emperor, I imagine, has promised to
support our staying on in Egypt in return for the help given by us
Digitized by
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1896] Kaiser Wilhelm and the King of Italy 221
vicariously to his ally the King of Italy. I notice already an announce-
ment that Germany does not intend to be otherwise than friendly to
Japan, which is also probably pait of the arrangement. It means in
any case that we are to have a new lease of occupation here. About the
advantage or disadvantage to Egypt nobody seems to have thought or
cared. I have written to John Morley, giving him my view of what
is going on, as I see he has brought the matter forward in Parliament.
It was through him that we stopped the Soudan war eleven years ago.
" 24/fe March, — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu called to tell me what is
going on at the palace. He sees the Khedive now twice a week, and
leads the prayer on Fridays at Koubbah, omitting the Sultan's name.
He was with the Khedive some little time ago, and while he was there,
a letter came from Lord Cromer, complaining of the Khedive's having
privately expressed disapproval of the Dongola campaign. The
Khedive was very angry at this, and afterwards saw Lord Cromer,
who repeated the complaint. The Khedive answered that upon this
point he was in agreement with his Lordship, to which Lord Cromer
did not dissent, but said that now that the thing was resolved on, it
was necessary to put a good face on it, and hoped that the Khedive
would speak in that sense to the soldiers. The Khedive has done so
since. Lord Cromer, too, has brought him a message from Lord Salis-
bury, apologizing for an * error of form ' on the part of the English
Government in ordering an advance on Dongola without first informing
His Highness. Lord Salisbury explained that the advance was de-
cided on ' to satisfy Egyptian opinion.' The Khedive narrated all this
to Mohammed Abdu, and I have no doubt it is true.
" 25/A March, — The English papers of the 17th and i8th came to-
day. Lord Salisbury's statement in the House of Lords is amazing.
He has made no such deliberate misstatement of an important truth
since the Congress of Berlin.
'* A large party to spend the afternoon, brought over by Lady Gallo-
way ; Lord Yarborough, Benson, the author of ' Dodo,' and others. She
brought with her Arthur Balfour's speech and Lord Salisbury's declara-
tion.
" 26th March,— Sheykh Hassan Abu Towil called to tell me that
the Government had assembled the Sheykhs of the tribes between As-
souan and the Mediterranean Sea, to confer with them as to the raising
of 7,000 horsemen for the Soudan war. Their answer so far has been
that they have neither horses nor arms. He asked my advice. I ad-
vised him strongly to get out of the matter if he could, as the war will
prove a bad business for Bedouins engaged in it. I doubted if one in
five would return. He told me that in former wars the Bedouins had
never been called to go out of their own district where they had acted
Digitized by
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222 The Khedive on the Dongola Campaign [1896
as guards. It would be better to say at once the men were unwilling
to go to a distance. He promised to bring Abu Shedid (head Sheykh
of the Howeytat) with him to-morrow to consult.
" 27th March,— A letter from Lady Lytton. She tells me : ' Rhodes
knew about Jameson's advance on the Transvaal, but certainly not
Chamberlain, though he may have encouraged Rhodes too much.' Just
so. It means that Chamberlain told Rhodes not to tell him the details,
but gave him to understand that he would be pleased at the fait ac-
compli. About the Soudan expedition she had great confidence in Lord
Salisbury, though ' one knows that what comes out in Parliament is all
arranged.'
" y>th March, — Received a note from Abdin, granting me audience
of the Khedive for to-day, so to-day I went there. He asked me first
about our journey to Ghareb and Keneh, which interested him much,
but we soon got to politics. He gave me a full account of what hap-
pened regarding the advance on Dongola. The question was begun
soon after the battle of Adowa by the arrival in Egypt of our military
attache at Rome (Slade?), when a council was held,^ consisting of
KnoUys, Kitchener, the attache, and Cromer. At this they decided to
send a force from Tokar to Kassala to take over that town from the
Italians and garrison it with Egyptian troops — this with the consent
of Italy, and Cromer telegraphed their decision to Lord Salisbury.
The Egyptian Government were not consulted, only informed of this,
and gave consent. After this they knew nothing till, on the 13th
March, Lord Cromer received a telegram from London, saying an im-
mediate advance on Dongola had been ordered. Kitchener was in bed,
and not at all expecting it. Neither he nor Cromer had recommended
it; and, in fact, they disapproved. The next day was Beiram, and
after the mosque, Mustapha Fehmy was informed of it by Cromer or
Kitchener, I am not sure which, and it was not till 7.30 that the Khedive
learnt it from Mustapha Fehmy. He refused his consent until a Coun-
cil of Ministers had been called, especially because of a demand made
that Suakim should be handed over to England. He disapproved of the
expedition on account of the hot time of year and the suffering of the
men and the increased cost of land transport at Low Nile, also because
It was made in no Egyptian interest. At the Council Kitchener with-
drew the demand for Suakim. When asked about it, he said that it
was not in question. Consent was then formally given to the rest of
plan. Cromer had since come to complain of his. Abbas', having
talked against the war, and had threatened to write against him in the
Blue Books. Abbas had answered that he objected on account of the
time of year and the cost, not in itself to the re-occupation of Dongola.
* Oh,' said Cromer, * in that I am with you, but you ought to be glad
^A fortnight or three weeks before Beiram.
Digitized by
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1896]. King Menelik of Abyssinia 223
to help the King of Italy. He gave hospitality to your grandfather for
many years at Naples.' * Yes/ answered Abbas, * and made him pay
pretty heavily for it too.' (Ismail lent a very large sum to the King,
which I believe was never repaid.) Cromer asked the Khedive to
write for publication an address to the Army approving the objects of
the campaign; but Abbas declined, saying it was not necessary to talk
politics to soldiers. He promised, however, to exhort them to obey
orders and do their duty. This he has repeatedly done. I asked him
whether Kitchener had recommended the Dongola campaign, and he
said ' No ; he knew nothing of it till he woke up out of his bed.' Also
as to the Duke of Cambridge, whom I suspected of having arranged
it, ' No, he is an old man, too old to conceal anything, and as we had a
deal of talk together I should have found out.'
" The Khedive also told me the detail of letters written to the Queen
and to himself by King Mangasheh of Abyssinia, complaining, to the
first, that he, being an old ally of England, England had nevertheless
supplied arms to the Italians. Mangasheh is a son of King John,
whom we put on the throne. His letter to the Egyptian Government
was to propose joint action against the Khalifa, in order to recover his
crown, which had been taken from him and carried away to Omdur-
man. In his letter to the Queen he asked England's good offices with
Italy for a peace. Both these letters were written before the battle of
Adowa, and were conveyed to Cairo by a cousin of Mangasheh. They
were translated at the Cairo War Office. The Queen's answer was in
general terms, hoping that peace would be made. The answer sent by
Lord Cromer, in the name of the Egyptian Government, was a proposal
that Mangasheh should advance on Omdurman, when they would to-
gether get back the crown, and Mangasheh should be recognized King
of Abyssinia. Mangasheh, however, Abbas said, would never go
against Menelik, as his father John had specially recommended him to
recognize Menelik as Emperor. Mangasheh's envoy went away dis-
satisfied, especially with the presents given him, which had been sup-
plied by the Secret Service Fund of the Egyptian War Office, namely,
a gold watch, a musical box, a red umbrella, and some dresses, which
he told the Khedive he should be ashamed to deliver to the King, as
they were the same as those worn by prostitutes in Abyssinia. They
were chosen by Kitchener. The Khedive said it would be a good thing
if I wrote an article in conformity with what he had told me; and
I promised to do so, but without compromising him. In going away
I asked him to allow Arabi to return to Egypt ; and he questioned me
about him, and I told him what an honest patricft he was, and that I
would make myself answerable for his loyalty. He promised me that
he would speak to Mustapha Fehmy about it, and I think he means it.
He said : ' What you tell me about him I must believe, for nobody who
Digitized by
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224 Gorst on the Campaign [1896
knows you can doubt that you are the best friend that Egypt has.' And
so we parted. I was again much struck with his great intelligence and
power of expressing his thoughts.
"3rd April. — I have been writing an article, *The Truth of the
Dongola Adventure/ for the * Ninteenth Century.'
** I see they have been pushing George Curzon with questions in the
House of Commons about Cromer's approval of the campaign — this I
doubt not in consequence of a letter I wrote to Morley, telling him
that Cromer had certainly not recommended it.
" 7th April. — Dawkins (the new financial adviser) was here to-day,
and tells me that the half million sterling taken from the Caisse de la
Dette has been spent already. The whole savings of Egypt will have
been used up before the campaign seriously begins.
" Young Somerset and his bride, Lady Katherine, came on Saturday,
a pleasing pair, who propose going to the Natron lakes on camels. I
tried to dissuade her, as she has never yet been on a camel, and there
was the chance of great heat so late in the year, but on Sunday, Easter
night, there was a thunder shower, and the weather has become almost
cold.
" lO^A April. — Gorst and his sister came to luncheon. He, like
Dawkins, evidently disapproves of the war. He says that it will end in
England's having to make the campaign at her own cost, as Egypt has
neither the money nor the men. I am, however convinced that it will
be put a stop to as soon as a convenienft pretext occurs. There is a
report that the Italians have evacuated Kassala. Also the Matabeles
have risen and killed a number of the Chartered Company's people,
and are besieging Bulawayo. The Chartered Company have no troops,
and English regiments will have to be sent to the Cape, and there will be
none to spare for a Soudanese campaign. I wish the Matabeles all
possible good fortune, and trust they may capture Rhodes, who is said
to be on his way from Fort Salisbury to Bulawayo. The man, how-
ever, is too sly, I fancy, to be caught, or to run any personal risks, and
a telegram to-day says he is laid up with a fever, and unable to move !
The Dongola expedition, therefore, will, in my opinion, get very little
farther than Akasheh. Gorst tells me it is true that Rhodes took away
with him 200 negroes from Cairo. He says they * volunteered.' But
the grounds of his belief seem slight. ' I inquired,' he said, * whether
they were going willingly, and was told that they were.' He is much
averse to the seizure of black men, as practised by the Sirdar Kitchener,
for the Egyptian army, and told me confidentially that he had had the
intention of putting a stop to it, as it is quite illegal. But the campaign
had interfered with his project. There has been a general raid on all
negroes in Egypt. They are seized and forced to serve in the army
on very small pay — I think thirty piastres a month, twopence half-
^
y
Digitized by
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1896] Rhodes Conscripts Black Men in Egypt 225
penny a day — and are there practically slaves for life — or rather for
as long as they are able to serve — for when past work in the army, they
are pitilessly ca^ adrift without pension or provision of any kind.
Yet we English pretend that our mission in Africa is to put down
slave-raiding and slavery. The English officers at Wady Haifa told
me last autumn that it was as precisely slavery as any existing in the
world.
" We are leaving for England on the 17th. I am glad to go, having
been seven motfths away.
" 12/A April. — Young Gordon (General Gordon's nephew, Bill) is
here with his wife. He confirms about the spending of the half million
by Kitchener, but says the expedition is being done very cheaply. He
has the ordering and arranging of the supplies, and says that the new
equipments, saddles, arms, etc., have only cost £20,000. He, like Gorst
and Dawkins, considers the Iritelligence Department absurdly over-
rated and overpaid. Wingate and Slatin between them get £1,700 a
year. Gordon has had some experience of the department, having been
employed under it at Souakim, and he knows how the information
brought in is cooked, and how the spies suit their news to the demand.
I asked him about the negroes taken away by Rhodes. He thinks it
likely that they were handed over by the agent of the Zanzibar Govern-
ment (which had been recruiting in Egypt). He himself supplied
Rhodes whh uniforms for them out of the public stores 'at a good
price.' He saw a great deal of Rhodes during the few days Rhodes
was at Cairo.
** 15th April. — They are apparently at a deadlock on the frontier,
the Finance Ministry being angry with Kitchener for spending all the
money. It must eventually fall on the English exchequer, if persisted
in. But I ^ill hope Lord Salisbury will be satisfied with the demon-
stration and go no farther.
" 17th April. — We leave to-morrow morning for England. Moham-
med Abdu was here yesterday with a young Turk of the Liberal party
from Constantinople. He was employed till lately in the Ottoman
bank. He seems not very hopeful of things on the Bosphorus, there
being too many persons in high places interested in keeping the present
system going. The army, though no better affected than the rest to
the Sultan, is withotft any leader for a revolt, and as long as it can
be paid it will do nothing. The civilian population has no power to
move.
" Mohammed Abdu gave me particulars about the raid there has
been made on the negroes in Egypt. Over 800 have been seized by the
police for Kitchener and put into the army. In some of the provinces
every black man of whatever age was taken and sent to Cairo, where
the valid ones were retained, the rest turned adrift in the streets. Yet
Digitized by
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226 George Wyndham and Jameson [1896
our Government talks of putting down the Slave Trade as one of its
objects in this Soudanese war. There seems to be no doubft that the
200 negroes taken by Rhodes to South Africa were practically pur-
chased from the Government of Zanzibar, which has ' recruited ' them
here. In the recent raid negroes holding respectable positions were
seized, among them a son of the Khedive's porter, the servant of El
Abbasi, Sheykh of the Azhar, and a writer employed at £7 a month in
the Native Courts at Cairo. These were rescued, but very many
others were driven oflF.
" I spent my last day, a very lovely one, in the garden — the roses
well in bloom, the nightingales singing, bee birds flying about, a roller
sitting near the tomb, and in the evening a jackal. I lit two candles
there for Sheykh Obeyd to get us a good passage home. We had our
Mowled there on Monday. Old Sheykh Abderrahman Faki promises
to say prayers for me in my absence, but expostulates that I do not go
to his mosque. I prefer to recite my Fatha at the tomb."
We reached London on the evening of the 24th, and slept there.
" 2$th April. — Breakfasted with George W)mdham. We are to go
together on a pilgrimage to Stratford in connection with a monograph
he is writing on Shakespeare. He has the practical editorship now of
the ' New Review,' and in Parliament is making a cave against Cham-
berlain, whom he agrees with me in considering as at the bottom of all
the Government mischief. He says there is no doubt in the world that
Chamberlain was in with Rhodes and Jameson in their attack on the
Transvaal, and he is angry with him for having backed out of it, and
ruined the plot at the last moment to save his own bacon. He has been
seeing much of Jameson, whom he likes, and of the gang that have
been running the Transvaal business, about a dozen of them, with
Buckle, the * Times ' editor, and Miss Flora Shaw who, he told me con-
fidentially, is really the prime mover in the whole thing, and who takes
the lead in all their private meetings, a very clever middle-aged woman.
George made, it appears, a good speech in the House ten days ago, at-
tacking the Government on the line of their having disarmed the Out-
landers, and left the Chartered Company defenceless. Chamberlain
has since been making overtures to him of friendship, and has been
walking about with him ostentatiously in the Lobby; but, seeing this
did not ^op George's mouth, he has since shown animosity. I warned
George that Chamberlain was a man who would do him a mischief if
he could. George is very happy with all this busy work.
" My article will be out on the ist duly corrected in the ' Nineteenth
Century,' and George has asked me to write him another for his June
number of the ' New Review.* I shall give him one on the Moallakat
with my translation of Antar's Ode.
'* Old Alfred Montgomery is dead, and buried with a wreath from
Digitized by VrrOOQ lS|
1896] Morris III at Hammersmith 227
the Prince of Wales ' to our dear friend.' So he ought to sleep happy
to the Judgment Day. He was quite the last of the old D'Orsay set
in London, and remained a ' man of fashion/ dining out to the end,
though he died actually away from London at Burley, with his daugh-
ter, Edith Finch.
" 2&th April. — To London with Anne. Ralph came to luncheon in
Mount Street, and I afterwards dined with him. He showed me the
whole existing correspondence between Byron and Mrs. Leigh.
" 14th May, — I have been down, for the most part alone, at New-
buildings, enjoying a wonderful fortnight, the woods lovely in green
and gold, nightingales singing night and day from every hedge, quite
a dozen close to the house so that one can hear them at any hour of
the night chorussing when one opens a window. I have finished my
article on the 'Poetry of the Ignorance,' and am half way through
another on the * Origin of the Arabian Horse,' for the June and July
numbers of the * New Review.' George and I and Sibell, and one of
the girls, are to go to Stratford on Saturday. I lunched to-day with
them and young Rosslyn, a pleasant specimen of the golden youth of
the day.
" Then to Hammersmith, where I found my poor old Morris looking
very ill and aged, toddling feebly in front of his house. We went in
together, and he brightened up, and told me of his maladies in a cheerful
not too desponding way, and I stayed on an hour or more and had tea
with him. My new tapestry, the Botticdli, is finished, and I am to
go with Mrs. Morris on Saturday to see it in Oxford Street. Morris
showed me the title-page of his Chaucer, which is about the finest
thing he has done, the whole has been subscribed for, a matter of
some £9,000.
" Gill, whom I saw in Mount Street, repeated to me more of what
Cromer had told him about the Soudan. He asked Cromer whether
he should be in favour of an advance to re-occupy the lost provinces.
In reply to this Cromer had told him that some time or other the Soudan
would have to be reconquered from the Khalifa, but the question was
by whom. As for imposing such a task on Egypt he was most em-
phatic. ' I should never think,' he said, ' of proposing that the poor
fellahin in their blue shirts should be charged with it' This, it is as
well to remember, was as late as the beginning of March, and within
a week of the expedition being ordered from England.
" IS^A May. — Had tea with Lady Lytton at her house in Sloane
Strecft. She thinks it a pity I should have written what I have about
the Dongola campaign, which has set people against me just as I was
coming home* By 'people,' I suppose she means the Court, and I
strongly suspect that Her Majesty has been the determining cause of
the forward policy in Africa. Lady Lytton was at pains to persuade
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228 With George Wyndham at Stratford [1896
me that it was entirely Lord Salisbury, and that nobody else had been
consulted about it.
" i6th May. — Lunched with George and Sibell, and found Madeline,
his mother, there, looking fresh and well and younger than I have
seen her for years, and came on with them in the afternoon to Stratford,
where we now are. We have already been to the Church and the
Grammar School. George is a capital companion for a visit of this
kind, as he enjoys sightseeing, and besides knows all about Shakespeare,
and has his theories about everything. We are at the Shakespeare
Hotel, a pleasant inn of the old kind. We have spent the evening
reading * Venus and Adonis ' and * Lucrece.' I have always been a
great admirer of these two pieces, which are the most elaborate and
su^ained of their kind, and splendidly rhetorical. I did most of the
reading as George has a cold.
" 17th May. — A beautiful hot day which we spent driving round
the country with a jibbing horse. We went to Charlcote and wandered
about the park, and then to Mary Arden's cottage, and to Anne Hatha-
way's. Both cottages are interesting, and quite untouched and un>
restored, the latter inhabited still by a descendant of the Hathaways.
It is after all no such long way back to Shakespeare's time, seven gen-
erations in my own family, and I think people largely exaggerate the
changes that have taken place. Remote country villages can have
hardly at all changed. In the evening I read them translations from
the Moallakat, about which George is enthusiastic. My article for the
* New Review ' has put him upon the track of discovery as to certain
features of chivalry in the Middle Ages in Europe, a subject not yet
properly traced to its origin in Arabia. We have had a thoroughly
literary two days, to me of much profit.
" iSth May, — .Mary joined us from Stanway with Miss Balfour,
and we all went to see the church and the tomb, then back to London in
the afternoon.
** 20th May. — Dined with Pamela, and then went to the Foreign
Office party in honour of Her Majest/s birthday, an immense crush,
but as always a fine sight, and many people one knows.
" 2gth May. — The Morrises have been here at Newbuildings since
Tuesday. He, poor man, very feeble and aged. I fear from the look
of things that it is some form of consumption, and that he will not
recover. But his spirits are fairly good, and he talks at times as bril-
liantly as ever. The new piece of tapestry he has made me, Botticelli's
Spring, is up and is very decorative and brilliant in the drawing-room,
though the faces are hardly as good as they ought to be. It has been a
great difficulty to execute it, he says, and has turned out better than he
expected. We think the three figures with the flowers are March,
April, and May. We have had many interesting talks on art, politics.
Digitized by
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1896] Morris on the Love of Beauty 229
and religion. As to the last he does not believe in any God the Creator
of the World, or any Providence, or, I think, any future life. But
he is not a pessimist, and thinks mankind the ' crown of things/ in spite
of man's destructive action and his modem craze of ugliness. His
illness does not make him gloomy; only it troubles him in his work.
" Swinburne's new poem was reviewed yesterday in all the papers.
Morris thinks it poor stuff and not worth doing, as the story, * Balin and
Balan,' was quite perfect in its pro§e form in the ' Morte d'Arthur.'
' It would not do, however,' he said, * for Swinburne to hear me saying
this, for he would never forgive me.' Swinburne, it appears, is the
most sensitive and jealous of men, and cannot bear the smallest crit-
icism. But he and Morris have not met for some years, though Mrs.
Morris goes now and then to see Swinburne. Tennyson, Morris says,
was the same, and never forgave him and Bume-Jones for having dis-
approved of his bowdlerization of the ' Morte d'^Arthur ' in the ' Idylls
of the King.' I drove Morris yesterday to Crookhom and a little way
round. He is, I think, happy here. The oak woods are new to him,
though he was born in Epping Forest, and he likes the multitude of
birds. He creeps about a little among them in the sun.
"31st May (Sunday), — The Morrises left yesterday. I think he
enjoyed himself while he was here, and he talks of coming back for
another week later, and of our making a drive together in Epping
Forest, where he was bom. But I fear he is very ill. He has told me
something of his origin. His father was a bill broker in the C?ty, and
he himself was destined for that trade. * If I had gone on with it,'
he said, ' I should have broken the bills into very small bits. We had
some mining shares in Comwall, and when I succeeded to them I sold
them. My relations thought me both wicked and mad, but the shares
are worth nothing now.' I took him yesterday to see Shipley Church,
a fine old Norman tower, injured with restoration. He was very in-
dignant, swearing at the parsons as we walked up the nave : * Beasts !
Pigs ! Damn their souls ! ' We had a long discussion whether the
love of beauty was natural or acquired. ' As for me,' he said, ' I have
it naturally, for neither my father, nor my mother, nor any of my
relations had the least idea of it. I remember as a boy going into
Canterbury Cathedral and thinking that the gates of heaven had been
opened to me, also when I first saw an illuminated manuscript. These
first pleasures which I discovered for myself were stronger than any-
thing else I have had in life.' He talked much about his Iceland
journey, as he often does, and has a sick man's fancy to go there again,
for it would do him good. ' I am a man of the North,' he said. ' I
am disappointed at the fine weather we are having here. I had hoped
it would rain, so that I could sit indoors and watch it beating on the
windows.'
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230 Royal Influences in Diplomacy [1896
" ist June. — Went up to London to take Anne to a Geographical
meeting, where Theodore Bent gave some account of his travels south
of where we were last winter. Like all our geographers nowadays he
is an arch Jingo, and talked of opening up the country by gold digging
as if it would be a work of piety. The Geographical Society has lent
itself to this sort of thing in Africa for the la^ thirty years.
"2nd June. — To lunch with Judith at Margot's; a great treat.
Margot was delightful and most amusing. We found her with Lady
Greville, who had come to interview her, on the subject of women
cross country riders, for some magazine. Margot was splendid in her
description of the various styles of riding, and of the falls and smashes
she had had and witnessed. ' There are only three women,' she said,
* who really have the nerve to ride a line of their own, and I am one
of them/ Her baby of last year has in no way spoilt her nerve, and
she had seventy days* hunting during the past winter. Two of her
step-children were with her at luncheon, and the governess, which gave
her a somewhat matronly appearance, but she is otherwise unchanged
from the days of her hoyden maidenhood — affectionate, and nice, and
cleverer than any one else, with a pretty colour in her cheeks, but very
thin. ' I have lost two stone,' she said, * since you were with me at the
Glen. I only weigh 7 stone 6, but I like to ride big horses. The best
I ever had was 16.2.
** 3rd June. — Newbuildings. I have sent the following to Morley :
* As the debate on the Soudan campaign is coming on I write a line
to say that I think you will find the action of the Italian Govemmerffc
explainable on the supposition put forward in my article in the '* Nine-
teenth Century" of May, viz., that the arrangemerit made with the
German Emperor was due not to the Italian Government, but to the
King of Italy personally through his appealing to the Emperor. The
Italian Govemmerft, and especially the Duke of Sermoneta, whom I
know well, are or were when they came into office opposed altogether
to the Italian Colonial policy. The Duke's hobby (if one may call it
so) is financial economy, and he would have liked to see the whole of
Erythrya with Kassala, and even Massowah, given iip. I am sure,
therefore, that it has been the King's influence that has been at work
overruling that of his Ministers. The Italian Government's object now,
I imagine, is to get their expenses in Erythrya, or at any rate at Kassala,
paid for by the Egyptian Government or ours, on the plea that they
have been pacifying the country in Egyptian interests. It is all non-
sense of course, but our Government, by inviting the Italians twelve
years ago to take Massowah, has put itself under some obligations to
Italy, which will be made the most of.
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' P.S. I am convinced that the whole of this business was worked in
the first instance by Royal personages, including our own, much more
than by the various F.O's/ *
*' 8f A June. — There is news of a * victory ' in the Soudan at Ferkeh,
come, however, just too late to serve as an answer by the Government
in Parliament. Labouchere rushed this debate on Friday, and it came
off most successfully, whereas the battle, which I have little doubt was
fought by order from Downing Street, was only fought on Sunday.
" Coming up to London in the morning I stopped at 90, Sloane
Street, to see Frank Lascelles. We had some talk about Egypt and
the Soudan, and he admitted to me that there had been a conversation
between him and the Emperor William, such as I allude to in my
' Nineteenth Ceiftury ' article. But he professed ignorance as to the
real reasons of the decision come to, to advance to Dongola, also surprise
at its having been made.
" loth June, — Mrs. Morris writes that Morris is less well, losing
weight daily and growing weaker. But the doctors will have it that ft
is nervous exhaustion only, and recommend a sea voyage and rest. I
do not believe them. She is to take rooms for him at Folkestone mean-
while, a sad prospect.
" i^ih June, — My good friend, J. H. Middleton, is dead.*
" i^th June. — An inque^ has been held on poor Middleton. The
jury have returned a verdict of ' death from misadventure.' What is
curious is that it now appears that for twenty years he has been a
morphia taker, and his long illness has been entirely due to that cause.
I have so often talked over with him his friend Rossetti's death from
chloral, which he used to deplore ! He is a great loss, or rather, one
should say, has been a great loss, for he has been dead to the world
and to his friends for something like two years.
'* Margot came to dinner with George W)mdham and Harry Cust,
a merry parti de quatre, and George stayed on talking with me after
the others were gone.
'* i6th June. — Lunched with Philip Currie and his wife, just back
from Constantinople. There seems little chance now of their being
transferred to Paris. Afterwards to Lady Galloway's.
" 24th June. — Yesterday to Folkestone to the Morrises. He is dis-
tinctly better, and I hope may yet come round, as the doctors declare
he will. He talked a great deal about his boyhood, said he had read
the whole of Scott's novels before he was seven, and had gone through
the phase of * Marmion ' and the * Lady of the Lake.' At his school,
^Compare Dr. Dillon's "Eclipse of Russia."
'John Henry Middleton, director of the South Kensington Museum.
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232 Morris an His School Life [1896
Marlborough, he was neither high nor low in his form, hvtt always last
in arithmetic [in this like me] ; hated Cicero and Latin generally, but
anything in the way of history had attracted him; he knew English his-
tory better than Greek history, though only the latter was taught ; he
had learned nearly everything he knew of architecture and mediaeval
things running about the country round Marlborough as a schoolboy.
The Morrises are at the Norfolk Hotel.
'*26th June. — With Everard Fielding to see Tissot's pictures, not
really good either in drawing or in taste, and rather sham in their
Oriental realism.
" Breakfasted with George, who was in the highest of his high spirits,
having been up at a ball till five at Grosvenor House, and then out at
nine to try a new bicycle on Hampstead Heath, which is to run forty
miles an hour. His triumphs are my triumphs, and I delight in his
happiness.
" 1st July. — Lunched with Harry Gust, who is starting in a few days
for Soifth Africa.
" 10th July. — Went with George W)mdham to a dinner given by
Henley to the ' New Review ' contributors, a deadly dull affair, as all
men's dinners are — the most interesting person I met there was the
Dane Brandes, who has the honour of having invented Ibsen. Whibley
also was there, with whom I talked.
/^ " Things are going badly in South Africa for the Chartered Com-
\ pany. The black are in arms, and it seems doubtful whether they can
be put down. Rhodes is now quite discredited.
*' 11th July. — Lunched with Lady Galloway, and down by the after-
noon train to Canterbury to stay with Guy Wyndham and his wife, who
are quartered there. They have a very beautiful child, a boy called
George.
*' 12th July. — With Guy to see the Cathedral. I am disappointed
with it, after all Morris told me — that is, with the inside, which has
been scraped out of most of its interest. Only the tombs are splendid,
especially that of the Black Prince. The tower outside, seen from the
cloisters, is grand, and I have arrived just in time to see these and the
chapter house unspoiled. ' If you had come a week later,' said the
verger, * you would have found the whole a mass of scaffolding.' Dean
Farrar, who wants, Morris says, to be made a Bishop, is bent on scrap-
ing and destroying all that has hitherto escaped, a hideous madness of
destruction nothing can prevent.
" In the evening back to London, and dined with the Morrises, to
wish him good-bye, as he sails for Norway next week. The garden at
• Kelmscott House is lovely with hollyhocks.
" iSth July.— To the Horse Show at the Cry^al Palace, where
Digitized by
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1896] Frederic Harrison at Cricket 233
Mesaoud has taken first Arab Prize, Meijiiss second. This is satis-
factory, though in truth no great triumph, seeing what a poor competi-
tion it was.
" 17th July. — Went to see Bowles and consult him about Egyptian
affairs, and as to bringing forward the case of Rhodes' 220 Soudanese,
which certainly ought to be done. Bowles has made for himself by
his cleverness a certain position in the House of Commons, and I would
rather he took the case up than the Radicals.
" iSth July,— I have written to the ' Times ' about Cecil Rhodes and
his 220 Soudanese recruited at Cairo, and never since heard of.
" In the afternoon I started for Blackdown, going by way of Pet-
worth, where I left cards, nobody being at home. Then on by Lods-
worth Common. This is, I think, the easiest, though the longest road,
and may be about twenty-one miles. I found Harrison at cricket with
his boys, now grown-up young men, but they came in presently, and I
played a set of lawn tennis with the philosopher, and spent a pleasan(t
evening discussing his creed of Humanity and mine of anti-Humanity.
It seems to be pretty much the same thing as far as politics are con-
cerned, for the principal wish of both of us is to see the break-up of,
the British Empire. He has some right to believe in Humanity, as he
has never had a pain or ache or a sleepless night in his life, and he i^
past sixty. Thus in half serious humour we passed the evening. There
is nobody in the world less like a philosopher or a religious leader than
the good Harrison.
*' igth July (Sunday), — OfiF at five in the morning, having said
good-bye overnight, going by Lodsworth and Ebenhoe, Kirdford and
Wisborough Green, an old-fashioned bit of country as any in Sussex,
belonging, I think, all to Leconfield. Long may it so remain.
" yd Aug. — Dr. Jameson has been sentenced to fifteen months im- '
prisonment, a sentence at once too much and too little. The Govern-
ment has made him a first-class misdemeanant, so as a punishment it is
very little. At the same time if the sentence had been carried out it
would have been a savage one. He ought to have been hanged at
Pretoria. The * Times ' has refused to publish my letter about Rhodes'
Soudanese.
"6th Aug, — There has been heavy cholera up the Nile. Captain
Fenwick dead, and one of the young engineer officers I saw at Korosko
last November. He was under twenty- four, and was receiving £1,000
a year from the Eg3rptian Government, and thought himself a lucky
fellow to be there. They are to advance on Dongola at the end of the
month. What our Jingoes want is to wait till the Egyptian army is
exhausted by heat, hard fighting, and cholera, and then to send an
English army to Khartoum in cool weather to reap the profits of the
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234 Reginald WUberfarce [1896
campaign in English interests. This is being advocated unblushingly
in the ' Pall Mall ' and elsewhere. I wrote to expose the scandalous
intention, but they would not print my letter.
"10th Aug. — Started on a driving tour in the New Forest, stopping
the first day for luncheon at Lavington with Ranald Wilberforce and
his family. I have known Ranald all my life, that is to say, from the
year 1845, when we lived for a while at Alverstoke after my father's
death, and when his father, the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, afterwards
Bishop of Oxford, was Rector of the parish. There were three boys
then — Reginald, at that time called Garton; Ernest, now Bishop of
Chichester; and Basil, Chaplain of the House of Commons. They
were all three as bad boys as could be wished, and my mother nicknamed
them ' the sons of Eli.^ Ernest, with whom I was in the same class at
school, an especially wicked boy, which is saying a good deal, but now
just as justly respected, and a Right Reverend Father in God. The only
good boy of the family was an older brother Herbert, but he had died
at sea, while the wicked ones lived on to adorn the Church of England
with their virtues. Thus is the child father to the man. I went over
the little parish church after luncheon with Reginald, who is an amusing
talker.
He showed me the grave of his Aunt Caroline, who had been Cardinal
Manning's wife. It remains without inscription of any kind. The
old Cardinal visited it in 1876 and talked of putting up a stone, btft he
was probably perplexed as to the wording of the inscription. * Wife of
Cardinal Manning' would have looked strange. Reginald, however,
thinks now of doing this, and suggests ' Wife of Henry Edward, after-
wards Cardinal Manning.' Reginald told me much else that was inter-
esting about Cardinal Manning's visit. He had come down for the
consecration of the Catholic church at Burton Park, and asked to be
allowed to lunch at Lavington, so they entertained him there, and he
saw all the old parishioners and was much affected. Afterwards he
walked to the top of the down with Reginald and discoursed to hini
about his soul, exhorting him to conversion — thus for two hours.
Their last words were: 'Think, my dear Reginald, if God should
require your soul of you to-night, where should you be?' To which
Reginald, * Why, my dear Uncle Henry, I should be in the hands of
God.' As his Eminence was leaving, the parishioners all came to wish
him good-bye, and he blessed them each in turn. When Reginald had
put his uncle into the carriage, he said : ' And is there no blessing, no
little blessing for me?' They never met again, and *he never cared
for me after this,' Reginald said, ' though he used to see my wife and
children and was always most affectionate to them.' He tells me the
way Purcell, his biographer, got hold of the Cardinal's diaries and
letters was this. He had had several conversations with Manning on
Digitized by
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the subject of his biography, and Manning had given him bome sort of
verbal promise about it and had shown him where his diaries were kept,
and one day he came to the house when the Cardinal was out and per-
suaded the servant to let him have them, saying that the Cardinal had
told him to call and take them away, he knew where they were, and
had authority, etc. But it was a pure theft and Manning had begun
legal proceedings for their recovery when he died."
I went on the same afternoon and camped on Goodwood Down, and
on the next day through Chichester to Fareham and Southampton, and
camped again in the evening at the edge of the New Forest, the im-
mediate object of my journey being to pay Auberon Herbert a visit at
Oldhouse. Of this I write:
" i2th Aug. — Oldhouse lies pretty well in the heart of the Forest.
One descends to it from the high road by a grass track of a mile and a
half. It is a freehold of half-a-dozen acres, recently purchased by
Auberon of its owner, and there he has made his hermitage. The old
cottage he has pulled down and in its place has built up a number of
cheap buildings of brick and wood devoid of architecture. Fortunately
they lie in a hollow and so are invisible uiftil one is close by. Auberon
has done so much for the Forest, and fought so many battles to preserve
it from the Crown officers, that he must be forgiven this^ one lapse. I
found him with Stafford Howard, the Crown Commissioner, and Es-
dale, a local squire and verderer of the Forest, Auberon's ally in the
Foresrt battle. I had much talk with them about this. The chief diffi*
culty is what to do with the great fir enclosures, the firs ought to be cut
down, but there is nobody to buy them, and an ugly growth of them is
creeping over the open spaces, self-sown. It ought to be put a stop to,
or in fifty years' time the Forest will be like Woking cemetery.
" Auberon is much aged since I saw him last, and more flighty than
he used to be. He is beset with a double mania, a craving for fresh air
and in contradiction a terror of draughts, so that he is always shifting
from in to out of doors and putting on or taking off extra clothing.
His two children, Bron and Nan, wait on him with angelic devotion.
They do all the work of the house. When I arrived Nan was in the
khchen up to her elbows in flour, making bread. She is a great strong
girl of sixteen, the picture of health, with limbs like a boy's, great
honest grey eyes, good complexion, and good teeth. Auberon and I
have talked a great deal on politics. Eastern and Western, he, as his
way is, asking innumerable questions. We agree on most subjects, but
he is too tender to his countrymen^s sins, excusing them and comparing
them favourably with the French. He has become an entire vegetarian,
as is his daughter, and for the most part his son. Their way of life is
the most uncomfortable imaginable. They have no fixed hours for
meals, or for getting up in the morning, or for going to bed The first
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236 His Children, Bron and Nan [1896
regtilar meal is said to be at half -past two in the afternoon, and there
is another at twilight in the evening, but they do not sit down to either
meal. Auberon sits in a summer house during part of his meal, while
the children run in and out, and he has constantly to geft up to arrange
and re-arrange his clothing, which is of Shetland wool shawls and
jerseys, and the children are called to put up and take down wooden
screens on this side and that as the wind may seem to blow or not to
blow. Nan, with inexhaustible patience, humours and serves her fa-
ther, and Bron is almost equally good to him. This is the best tribute
that can be paid to Auberon's system of education, but it is clear there
must be a breaking point somewhere. I don't know which child to ad-
mire the most, the boy or the girl.
" 13th Aug. — Spent the morning alone writing, for Auberon has his
occupations. He is a wonderful man, with a certain ethereal beauty
of the Shelley kind, which has increased with years. His theories are,
I believe, essentially true, and he is true to them in practice, but without
his children it would be a desolate, impossible life. He took me for
a walk at luncheon time, discoursing as he went, his daughter following,
us, all ears for our talk. She is very nice and pleasant, as girls
of sixteen always are, still wearing short petticoats, and with
hair cut short, enthusiastic at the thought of going, perhaps this winter,
to Egypt.
" 14th Aug, — On by Ringwood and up the Avon valley to Salisbury,
where we baited at the White Hart, an excellent inn, but vitiated by a
German waiter. I went over the Cathedral, which has been scraped
inside and garnished from end to end. In another hundred years it
may perhaps tone down again to beauty, but at present the black pillar
stems, newly polished, have the effect of so many tall stove pipes. It
was infinitely finer under the old whitewash, but the deans will have'
their way. Then on to Wilton and George Pembroke's grave. The
house is shut up, as Sidney finds himself too poor to live in it, and the
days of their joyous youth are a vanished dream. Then on across the
Down through Groveley Wood, the biggest mere wood in England,
where I remember riding with Pembroke and his brothers and sisters
thirty years ago, when they were children, playing a game of Puss in
the Corner, with wild galloping down the rides. There at nightfall I
camped.
" 15th Aug, — Another short morning's drive brought us to Stockton
where I spent the Sunday with my cousins Pamela and Eddy Tennant.
'* George has been appointed to the South African Committee, and is
to sail for the Cape to-day."
From Stockton I went on through Warminster and Longleat Park
to Mells. " Longleat is very fine approached from this side, but the
house disappointed me. It is very perfect, too perfect, and, large as it
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is, it is lost in the size of the park. What makes it look dull is the uni-
form plate-glass which has been put in every window. It is astonish-
ing how this destroys the beauty of old buildings. It is as though the
eyes in a beautiful face had been put out and replaced with spectacles.
I prefer Mells, where I now am, a really fascinating little place, a
comfortable eighteenth-century house, remote and shut in, which gives
a sense of immemorial quiet screened from the world's view. I arrived
late at half-past seven, but they had not yet gone to dress for dinner,
and presently out rushed the whole family. Mrs. Homer, with her
children, very pretty ones, and Godfrey Webb, who is staying there,
and Homer, who went out to help me choose a camping place, and
invited me in to dinner. I was not expected, but travelling in this
way calls out the latent hospitality of the countryside ahnost as much
as if one were in the East, and Homer gave himself endless trouble
about my road to Wells next morning.
" lyth Aug, — My day's drive to-day was along the Mendlip Hills
to Wells, where I baited the horses at the Swan Inn, near the Cathe-
dral. Wells Cathedral is the most perfect in England. The inside has
been scraped, but not much spoiled, while the outside is quite intact.
Its surroundings are unique — the Bishop's palace, the famous wells
in the Episcopal garden, and the moat. While in the Cathedral I
got shut in behind the choir, and sat on a stone bench listening, not
unediiied, to the chaunting of a service. It is an interesting thing to
have witnessed, as I have, from its banning, the revival of the
Church of England, which fifty years ago seemed almost dead. In
those days a Cathedral like this was left almost without ceremonial from
Sunday to Sunday, and the officiating canon, if he read the church
service to his clerk, would begin with 'Dearly beloved brother,' for
waift of other congregation. Now all is elaborately ordered, yet I
confess I like the old godless way best, it was more honest and marked
the fact, which was a fact, that the continuity of church worship had
been broken at the Reformation. Now all is sham medievalism, sham
seventeenth century, sham eighteerPth century. We shall get back pres-
ently, I hope, to our pews on eclectic principles, and a new Georgian
era of ecclesiastical wigs and gowns. Then I ran down by train to
Glastonbury and back, and camped for the night in a beautiful coombe
belonging to a Mr. Tudway, a local banker to whom Homer had given
me a letter, dining with him in a beatftif ul Georgian house belonging to
his family since 1760. Here my driving joumey ended, for we were
overtaken with heavy rains.
"30//i Aug. — We have had three public events during the week,
first Cecil Rhodes has patched up a peace with the Matabeles, heralded
in all the daily papers as an heroic act of courage, because he went
personally to the Matabele camp to treat. Secondly, our gallant fleet
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238 Bombardment of Zanzibar [1896
has bombarded Zanzibar. The Sultan had died suddenly, and Khalid,
one of his relations, son of the former Sultan Bargash, had seized the
throne and got the native soldiery to join him. These held the palace
against the fleet, which bombarded them from close quarters, killed
five hundred of them, and burnt out the remainder. Our papers are
again exultant, and raise a cry for annexation on the plea for abolishing
slavery in Zanzibar. Yet I remember fifteen years ago Sultan Bar-
gash applying to me to get the Indian Government to allow him coolie
labour as a substitute for the slaves. Zanzibar was a model Arab
State, a hundred times more liberal in its ideas than the Government
of India, which would not hear of helping the Sultan. I know this,
having brought the case before Lytton. Thirdly, there has been a
new great slaying of Armenians at Constantinople, the companion of
what took place last year, but on a larger scale. It was begun, as in the
first instance, by the Armenian Committee, which seized the Ottoman
bank and threw bombs into the street, their object being to force on a
crisis. To this the Moslems retorted with a massacre.
" 2nd Sept. — The Nile expedition has been stopped by floods, great
seyls from the hills, which have swept away the new railway just as
they have finished it. The talk is now of having hardly time to get to
Dongola before the river goes down. If the expedition fails, all I have
said about the abdication of Providence has been blasphemy. The
good Egyptian troops have been worn out by hard work in a thankless
labour. They are said now to be * tired.' Broadwood wrote me this
some time ago.
" yd Sept, — To Wotton to dine and sleep. The good old Evel)m
is packing up his trunks to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Next day
to London to see Morris, whom the doctors now declare to be in a
pulmonary consumption. Mrs. de Morgan was there and Cockerell,
and while I was sitting with them in came Madeline Wyndham, beauti-
ful in her old age. She took me away with her to see some enamel
work she is learning to do at the studio of one Fisher, and I was
shown all the process of mixing the colours, ground glass with water,
arranging them on a silver plate and burning them on a small oven.
Fisher has done a beautiful triptych of a Crucifixion, and a very pretty
classic bit called ' Love's Chase,' but the best thing there was one of
Madeline's own, two peacocks.
** 8th Sept, — Started on a series of visits to Scotland, and, on my
way north, I find the following :
" 12th Sept, — Met Lord Loch in the train, and had much interest-
ing talk with him on South African affairs and the intrigues of Ger-
many. He told me that when he was at Pretoria some of the Boers
explained these to him. Also that the opposition of Germany in South
Africa dated from 1886, when Bismarck began it, as against the Em-
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1896] Gladstone on Armenia 239
press Frederick. We also discussed the possible deposition of the Sul-
tan. He thought this could only be done by Russia, as bur fleet could
not get through the Dardanelles \athout heavy loss."
While in one of the country houses I found in an anonymous book,
dated 1722, the following admirable epitaph of a Duke of Buckingham,
which I cannot help transcribing here, so suitable is it for the agnosti-
cisms of our day.
"Pro rege saepe, pro Republica semper.
Dubius sed non improbus vixi.
Incertus morior sed inturbatus.
Humanum est errare et nescire.
Christum adveneror. Deo confido,
Omnipotenti benevolentissimo.
Ens entium, miserere mei."
Often for the King, always for the Commonweal
Doubting but not wickedly have I lived.
I die uncertain but tmperturbed.
It is human to err and not to know.
I venerate Christ. I trust in God
The omnipotent the most kind
Being of beings, have pity on me !
Back to London, where we found " great preparations being made
for the Emperor and Empress of Russia, who are being feted in the
middle of an agitation against Russian policy at Constantinople. All
our English world has gone mad with self-righteousness.
" 26th Sept. — Gladstone has fired off his powder against the Sultan
at Liverpool, but there was no shot in his Armenian gun. All he can
think of as a means of coercion at Constantinople is to break off diplo-
matic relations, summon the Sultan to take action of some kind and
go no further- It is too foolish. All the time he was in office the old
man lifted not so much as a finger for the Armenians, and now that
he cannot help them he would play their champion against Abdul
Hamid, who owes the strength of his position mainly to English di-
plomacy, as he should remember. In 1882 Gladstone called on Abdul
Hamid to help him to put down liberty in Eg3rpt by proclaiming Arabi
a rebel and, as he explained to an Indian Mohammedan deputation at
the time of Tel-el-Kebir, sent troops to Egypt * to establish the Sultan's
rights there.' In all this he made the Sultan his accomplice against
the liberal Mohammedan party, and by doing so set Islamic patriotism
on reactionary lines and gave the Suhan his present triumph over his
reforming enemies. If liberal Islam is powerless to-day in the Sultan's
grasp it is distinctly 6ladstone who has made it so, yet now he comes
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240 Morris^ Death [1896
forward shocked at the result. I should like to write these things, but
who would listen?
"28fA Sept. — Dined with the Morrises. He came in like a man
risen from the grave, and sat a few minutes at the table, but seemed
dazed and unable to follow the conversation. Miss de Morgan was
there, and his wife waiting on him, and a voung man who had chari-
tably come in to sit up with him at night. He .^emed absorbed in his
misery.
"4/A Oct, {Sunday).— Moms is dead. I got a letter telling it
from Lady Bume- Jones this morning. She says, 'Our dear friend
Morris died at twenty minutes past eleven this morning, as quietly as
ever a babe went to sleep in its mother's arms.'
" It has come sooner than I expected, though I knew his case was
hopeless. It is better as it is. He is the most wonderful man I have
known, unique in this, that he had no thought for anything or person,
including himself, but only for the work he had in hand. He was ncft
selfish in the sense of seeking his own advantage or pleasure or com-
fort, but he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to be either openly
affectionate or actively kind. I suppose he had a real affection for
Bume-Jones, they saw each other constantly and spent their Sunday
mornings, always together, and I have seen him tender to his daughter
Jenny and nice with her and with his wife, but I doubt if he thought
of them much when he did not see them, and his life was not arranged
in reference to them. To the rest of the world he seemed quite indif-
ferent, and he never, I am sure, returned the affection I gave him. He
liked to talk to me because I knew how to talk to him, and our fence of
words furbished his wit, but I doubt if he would have crossed the
street to speak to me. He was generous and open-handed in his deal-
ings, and I fancy did many kindnesses in a money way for people in
distress, but he fashed himself for no man and no woman. The truth
is he would not give an hour of his time to anyone, he held it to be too
valuable. Thus, while all the world admired and respected him, I doubt
whether he had many friends ; they got too little in return to continue
their affection. I should say half-a-dozen were all the friends he
had. I do not doubt myself among that number, intimate as I was
with him and much as I loved him. It will be a great grief for Jenny,
a great break-up for Janey, and a great loss for the world at large, for
he was really our greatest man.
" $th Oct. — I came up to London to see if I could be of any use
at Kelmscott House, and first I called on Burne- Jones and had lunch-
eon with him and his son. He said that his interest in life had come
to an end with Morris, as all their ideas and plans and work had been
together all their lives. Phil, with whom I had a private talk, gave me
curiously enough the exact same impression of Morris as that which
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I wrdte in this diary yesterday. His impersonality, his lack of per-*
sonal affection for anyone except, perhaps, for his, Phil's, father. Then
I went on to Hammersmith. The coffin, a very plain box, lay in the
little room downstairs, with a beautiful old embroidered cloth over it
and a small wreath of leaves and sad-coloured flowers. It was the
room which was his bedroom, and where he died, with his best and
favourite books around him. The morning after the day I dined with
him, Tuesday, was a fine one and he was taken out for an airing in his
chair, and he enjoyed it thoroughly and said he felt well. On coming in
he insisted on going upstairs, but the exertion was too much ; he broke
a blood vessel and lay after that for the most part insensible till he died
on Saturday.
"8th Oct. — Rosebery has resigned his leadership of the Liberal
party. I wrote at once to Loulou Harcourt to congratulate his father.
" 15th Oct. — I am leaving home this afternoon for Egypt, stopping
as usual for three nights at Gros Bois on my way. Jusserand and his
wife there, and Giovanni Borghese and young Norton, Mrs. Norton's
grandson, now at the Paris Embassy.''
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CHAPTER XII
SIWAH
" 24th Oct. 1896.—
" I have been reading Slatin's * Fire and Sword in the Soudan/ a
sensational volume written with a purpose, the style obviously Win-
gate's, as it is identical with his * Ohrwalder ' book. Slatin is a mean
wretch to have published h, and the Mahdi made a mistake in not
cutting off his head at once when he surrendered, and sending him
straight to Paradise. His professions of loyalty to the Khedive and
to our gracious Queen are fulsome, and those of disloyalty to the
people whose religion he adopted to save his miserable life, disgusting.
Gordon's judgment of him is justified when he distrusted him as a
traitor and despised him as a renegade, for he shows himself here
doubly both.
"With regard to the Mahdi, Slatin declares him to have been a
h3T)ocrite and an impostor, but his opinion rests upon no evidence
given and seems to me wholly improbable. Slatin only saw him a
few times and was never at all in his confidence, and on the few oc-
casions that the Mahdi spoke to him he seems to have done so kindly
and reasonably. Slatin is himself a witness that the whole of the
Mahdi's followers believed in him to the very end, and it is quite
incredible that they should have done so if, while preaching self-
denial to others, he had really been the monster of depravity Slatin
affirms him to have been in his private life. Such a discrepancy could
not have been hidden from the Soudanese world and could not but have
destroyed the popidar belief in him. With regard to the Khalifa
Abdullah the position is different, as Slatin was intimate with him
and Abdullah had no pretensions to high sanctity, nor did his fol-
lowers believe in him as a saint. Slatin talks about his own military
honour, but how does the case stand? When he surrendered to the
Mahdi he was put in reality on parole, that is to say, he promised and
swore fidelity to the Mahdi, in return for which he was allowed his
freedom and an honourable position in the Mahdi's army. He used
this position to betray the Mahdi by writing letters to Gordon in a
sense contrary to his orders. For his treachery he might justly have
been shot, but after a short imprisonment, and on his giving a new
242
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parole, he was reinstated only to escape and betray again. We shall see
this honourable soldier made a K.C.B. [And so he was] .
"27th Oct. — Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd to-day, the garden very
green and beautiful. The Nile is at its full, and everything is drink-
ing deeply in the hot sun. I am surprised, as I am every year surprised,
at the quality of the loveliness, the vivid colours, the depths of shade,
the brilliancy of the light. It is an absurdity to waste one's life else-
where. I am too idle to write, I can only enjoy.
**gth Nov. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu called to-day, and we had
a long talk about the Khedive. Abdu is dissatisfied with certain things
His Highness has done, and especially with a dispute about land he
has had with Hassan Musa el Akkad. He calls the Khedive's con-
duct puerile, which it doubtless is. He says that his marriage was en-
tirely his mother's doing. When Abbas first came back from Europe,
he wished to have a bachelor's establishment without women, but his
mother forced half-a-dozen slaves on him, and eventually he chose
the one he has married. He has had a new disappointment this year
in the biith of a second daughter instead of a son.
" igth Nov. — To Cairo to see the Khedive. He received me in the
same friendly way as always, and talked, as always, without reserve.
He asked me if I had been to Constantinople, and we discussed the
situation there and the probability of European intervention, which
mu^ come with the Sultan's increasing financial difficulties. The
power of the Porte will then be re-established and a financial control
set up.
" He talked much about Dongola and the unfairness that had been
exercised towards his own Egyptian soldiers as contrasted with the
English soldiers, only one baggage camel was allowed to every five
Egyptian officers, while Kitchener took as many as 150 camels for
himself and his mess. The Eg3rptian soldiers had to do all the work,
the English got all the credit. As to the English battalion it did next
to no work, and did not even march on foot, but was sent by rail
while all the Egyptians marched. The fellah soldiers, too, had never a
hot meal given them, nor more than ten hours rest in the twenty-four.
They had insufficient water, and only two loaves instead of the three
they gave them at Cairo, the third loaf they could have, but they must
pay for it. I asked him how much the expedition had cost. He said
first a half million taken from the Caisse, then several hundred thou-
sands taken for the railway. He did not know when the expedition
would be renewed, but not till next autumn.
" He also told me the whole history of Rhodes and the Soudanese
he took from Cairo. He, the Khedive, had seen them himself being
embarked for Suez. There were 200 of then, men got together by
Kitchener, and ni^de over to Rhodes in a lump. Kitchener had told
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244 Rhodes Exports Negroes from Egypt [1896
him they were not good enough for service in the Egyptian anny.
They had gone with Cromer's consent but without his, the Khedive's,
permission. Their exportation was quite illegal. Cromer had apolo-
gized for the informality of not asking permission. The Khedive knew
nothing of what had become of the men, except that he had been told
they had been disembarked at Mombaza. Rhodes gave the meni a
month's pay in advance and took their women and children with them.
The women were given a shilling each as bakshish. * But this is not
all. A little before this happened a negro came to me and told me of
a case of slave dealing, of a man and woman who had been bought
by the sons of Prince Ibrahim for their harem. To prevent a scandal
I told the yotmg men they must get rid of them. Whereupon they
went to Lord Cromer and threw themselves at his feet and begged
forgiveness. Cromer then took the two slaves and married the woman
to one of the soldiers who was given to Rhodes, and the man was sent
with the rest to Sue^. Also they took one of my Shaggias (soldiers of
his bodyguard) who went away taking my uniform with him, but I
had him stopped and brought back.'
" We stayed talking for three-quarters of an hour, and he made me
a number of pretty speeches when I went away,. He was rather inquisi-
tive about a journey I had arranged to Siwah, which he had heard of
and seemed anxious to dissuade me from. I suppose he had heard
of it from his camel men. I also called on Riaz and Tigrane.
" 2gth Nov, — A long letter from George Wyndham from South
Africa where he has been with Rhodes getting up a case for him for the
Parliamentary Committee. His letter is an interesting one written
at intervals of a long ride from Buluwayo to the Transvaal frontier.
The work done in South Africa is sickening, and seems likely to lead to
the destruction of the whole black race south of the tropics. The
Rinderpest has destroyed all wild animals, and is destroying their cat-
tle. The 'rebels' are being blown up by dynamite in the caves of
the Matoppo hills, and their chiefs shot in cold blood, and while all this
is going on we are having meetings the whole of England over to
denounce the Sultan because he is destroying the Armenians. Was
there ever a nation like ours? Never, since the world began.
"I had a long talk with Mohammed Abdu a few days since. He
has read my * Nineteenth Century ' article about Armenia, and ap-
proves all I have said against Abdul Hamid. He looks upon him as
mad and to be deposed. He gave me an interesting account of his
own persecution at the Azhar by the old-fashioned Sheykhs of the
Ulema in the days of Ismail, especially by Sheykh Aleysh. He had,
he says, at one time, as many as 4,000 students who attended his lec-
tures, hvtt the Conservative opposition was too strong for him. Still
there was a good deal of liber^ of thought and speech at Cairo even
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in those days, it never was as bad here as it is now at Constantinople,
but all the old-fashioned ideas of liberty and humanity are fast dis-
appearing from the world. Abdu and I find ourselves almosft alone
in our views. The best effect my article has had in England has
been to make John Morley pronounce himself in favour of coming to
terms about evacuating Egypt. His speech on this head is a para-
phrase of my article.
" Mrs. Morris and her daughter May have been staying with us
here at Sheykh Obeyd for the last ten days.
" i^th Dec. — We went in yesterday to Cairo to see Ali Pasha
Sherifs horses which, with the rest of his property, are to be sold by
auction on Thursday. We shall probably bid ;f or three or four of the
brood mares, and so save a remnant from extinction, sold to us pri-
vately before the auction.
" 17th Dec— The luck of the thing is that Ali Pasha's affairs, being
in the hands of trustees, it is to spite them that *the old man is willing
to sell privately to us. He insists on his right to dispose of them as
he pleases. When he had received our cheque he sent the mares off
in *the dark at four in the morning. Now there has been a row be-
tween the old mail and the trustees. Ali Pasha declares that not an-
other horse shall go out of the stable without his permission. Mutlak,
who arranged the whole thing for us, found him this morning siting
at his window which overlooks the yard of his palace and the stables,
with a Winchester rifle loaded at his side, with which he swears he
will shoot anyone who ventures to come near these. The old man
is considered mad by his relations, and his sons have had him inter-
dieted and his affairs placed in Sabit Pasha's hands as trustee, but
we have got the mares and they are beautiful. The mere name of
having purchased them will be worth much to our stud, for they are
celebrated the whole East over, and I don't think the trustees will care
really to dispute our purchase. Abdu tells me that according to the
terms of the interdiction, Ali Pasha may do what he likes with his
moveable property, and Carton de Wiart, the leading lawyer here
whom I have consulted, gives me a curious account of the reason of
the interdiction. It was a little political job of which there are so
many done at Cairo. When Ali Sherif, two years ago, was involved
in the slave trade prosecution, feeling ran high between the Khedive
and Cromer about it, for in reality our people took advantage of the
old man's age and infirmities to force on him an apology which he
might perfectly well have refused, for he had done nothing illegal.
Cromer, seeing he had been in the wrong, agreed therefore to the
following arrangement by mutual concession. On his side he con-
sented to the dismissal of Shafer, the anti slave-trade official who had
brotight the action against Ali Sherif; and the Khedive on his side
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246 Princess Nadi on the Sultan [1896
agreed to Ali Sheriffs being interdicted as incapable of managing his
affairs. But Ali Sherif was not really mad, only extravagant and old.
" 22nd Dec. — Anne and I called on Princess Nazli yesterday. She
is looking an old woman now, but is still full of life and conversation.
She has thrown herself lately into the Young Turkey movement at
G)nstantinople and has written a letter to the Sultan which she asked
Anne to translate for her into English, though she speaks Ei^lish
perfectly. She told us she considered Abdul Hamid very near his
end now, and she only hoped that he would be assassinated and not
simply deposed, as it would be a good lesson for his successor. Hith-
erto the Young Turks had been averse from this extreme measure,
but according to the latest news they are now determined on it. In
this I should not be surprised if they were following a hint from
our Embassy. Murad, she said, is quite sane, and would be Abdul
Hamid's successor. About politics in Egypt she also talked, praisii^
Cromer and the English Occupation and in virulent abuse of the
Khedive. A good deal of this I know to be nonsense, but she is a
clever woman, and I fancy has done much towards converting travel-
ling Englishmen to a belief in their ' great and noble work ' in Egypft.
Cromer intervened with the late Khedive to prevent his cutting off
her allowance as princess of the vice-r^al family.
" 30/A Dec. — Mohammed Abdu came yesterday and told me the
news. There has been a great row on account of the confirmation by
the native appeal court of Sheykh Ali Yusuf's acquittal. Ali Yusuf
had been prosecuted for publishing in his newspaper, the ' Moa3^ad,*
a telegram relating to military events during the Dongola campaign,
which it was asserted he had got from a telegraph clerk of the name
of Kirillos. The evidence against Ali Yusuf was of the slightest
kind; that against Kirillos only presumptive. The latter had on one
occasion been seen copying a telegram, not the one in question, pre-
sumably for the press. Against Ali Yusuf there was no evidence at
all. Nevertheless Cromer seems to have determined on fighting a
battle with the native press, and when the case came before the Appeal
Court, Cameron, the English judge, informed his two native colleagues
that they were expected to find the accused guilty, or they would in-
volve the Native Appeal Court in strong measures of ' reform ' which
would be taken against it. He also accused them of having been
tampered with by the Khedive, and when they indignantly refused to
find the accused guilty, Cameron refused at first to sit with them in
deliverii^ judgment of acquittal. Now Cromer has announced that
a number of English councillors would be added to the court so as to
swamp the native members. Abdu assures me that as a matter of
fact the Khedive had nothing to do with the matter, and that the
judges could not have decided otherwise on the evidence before them.
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Nothing so scandalous has happened here since the Kitchener affair,
and this is really worse, as it is an attack on the integrity of the law.
Carton de Wiart, the Belgian lawyer, who is at the head of his pro-
fession here, confirms the story to me, and there seems to be no doubt
about it. Abdu declares that Lord Cromer is led by the nose by
certain Syrians, of whom the editor of the ' Mokattam ' and one Shakur
are the principal agents. Certainly he appears to be under unfortu-
nate inspiration. It has become very much a personal struggle and
quarrel beftween Cromer and the Khedive. Lord Salisbury allows
Cromer to carry matters with a high hand. The Khedive, on the
other hand, is also led by intriguers, so that there is really no rational
authority at the head of things." This was the beginning of Lord
Cromer's interference with the operation of the law in Egypt for politi-
cal purposes, an intervention which he carried afterwards to extreme
results.
" 2%th Jan,, 1897. — I am preparing for a long journey to Siwah, and
perhaps to Jebel Akdar and Benghazi. This should take forty days at
least, and there is just a little risk in ft-, especially as I am far from
well, but it is a thing I want to do and I feel if I put it off till another
year it will never be accomplished. Possibly I may be able to go as
far as to visit the Sheykh el Senussi, but this is doubtful, as the Sheykh
has disappeared within the last year, and it is not known exactly where
he is, but I shall learn all about that from my friend Abdullah el Jibali,
in the Fayoum, to whom, in the first instance, I intend to go. I hope
all the same to accomplish my journey successfully and be back in
time for our annual migration to England.
"2nd Feb, — I have arranged to start on my journey on the 5th,
having by good luck met Abdullah el Jibali yesterday, when I was in
Cairo, and have arranged that he is to send me on to Siwah and
Benghazi. I am looking forward immensely to this trip, and only wish
Anne was going with me, but she will not leave Judith, so I must go
alone. There is just a little danger in the journey, principally of my
falling ill, so I have signed a codicil to my will. All my preparations
are made, and I am away on Friday with a good prospect of getting
through to Tripoli or Benghazi. If only Anne were going too I "
The journey to Siwah proved much more difficult and dangerous
than I imagined, and is of sufficient political interest to make me include
the whole of my travelling diary in this volume contrary to my general
rule about desert expeditions. I started in ill health and in a frame
of mind of unusual recklessness and depression as well, feeling that
it would be the last I should make of any serious kind. I had, too, at
the back of my mind, the thought that perhaps I might find among the
Senussis something of the better tradition of Islam I had been so often
disappointed of in the more civilized Mohammedan lands, and possibly
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248 Start for Siwah [1897
that true desert hermitage I had so often dreamed of. Somcfthing of
this will be found noted in my diary, and I give it hardly at all abridged
as it stands there.
" Sth Feb. — Left Sheykh Obeyd at half-past seven. Our travelling
party consists of Suliman Howe)rti, Owde his cousin, and Eid, all
Bedouins of the Howeytat, and Salem, my Egyptian body servant for
cook, with Abd-el-Salaam of the Oulad AH Bedouins, my own six
camels, one with foal at foot, and my mare Yemama. Anne and
Judith rode the first few miles with me. We passed the Obelisk of
Heliopolis and followed the Towfikiyeh Canal to Mustorod where Anne
and Judith turned back. They saw a blue kingfisher on the way but
I missed seeing it, which I take for an ill omen. From Mustorod we
followed the Helwa, the sweet water canal — overtakii^ many people
on their way to marke?b at Cairo with loads of bersim. A few white
herons were about, and by the cactus gardens we saw tracks of jackals,
nothing European, till we reached the railway station of Pont Limon at
Cairo, then on through the town to Kasr el Nil Bridge, mixed up with
carriages, people on bicycles, and the usual mongrel crowd; and on
to within half a mile of Mena (nobody recognizing me) when we turned
to the left and camped beyond it on the sand. I have with me the
following moneys for my journey, £40 in English gold, £$ in silver
dollars, and £8 in small silver, ii in half piastres — total £54 13^.
" 6th Feb. — To-day we followed up the Nile valley passing to the
right of Sakkara — many tracks of foxes and jackals on the desert
edge. Great fields of lupins (termis) — the Delta very green — desert
larks but few other birds, except wagtails. Camped at half-past two
by the birkeh, where the road branches off to Tumiya — teals, coots,
pochards, pintails, and other small waterfowl. The water brackish.
A very beatftif ul evening.
"Abd-el-Salaam tells me he went campaigning with 1,500 of his
tribe, in the first year of Ismail's reign, to tfie Soudan, taking the outer
road of the Oases, and as far as Darfur and Kordofan. He told me
also much about Jebel Akhdar (the Cyrenaica). There are five springs
in it, he says, with streams running from them, all well wooded with
trees, jseytoun (olive) and karub, with much grass and crops watered
by rain. It is held by the Harabi tribe with whom the Oulad Ali had
been goum (enemies) from the time of Said Pasha. But he, Abd-el-
Salaam, has friends amongst them. He has travelled to Benghazi and
to all the Oases, but not to Tarablus (Tripoli) or Tunis. He boasts
that the Oulad Ali are of Anazeh blood ; as to the Harabi they are of
Harb blood. He is fasting for Ramadan, which no one else of us is,
and is rather cross and obstinate. I am ncft sure about taking him
beyond Kasr-el-Jibali. There is beautiful sweet camomile here for
our camels.
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1897] Across to the Fayoum 249
"7fA Feb. (Sunday). — OflF at half-past seven. A plain desert
march, following a track made by sheep and cattle the whole way.
Sighted a fox in the early morning on his way home to some limestone
cliffs. Also passed two cattle droves. No other incident. I remember
twenty-one years ago travelling this way and having a tussle with a
young Arab horseman, who had jeered at us for our European dresses.
He pointed his gun at us, and I took hold of it and pulled him off his
horse, his girths giving way, and he came a tumble, much to his dis-
comfiture. This was in 1876. We are encamped under the tamarisks,
where formerly Fraser, who was travelling with us, and I shot hares.
'* Abd-el-Salaam has gone on with his recollections. The expedition
he tells me was six months away on their Soudan campaign, each
horseman receiving 200 piastres a moifth and all found, including camels
and horses; also their families received from £13 to £14 while they
were gone. There was no fighting, 'victorious without fighting.' In
all this Western desert southwards there is no pasture, except a little
nossi that comes up after the rain, or northwards till you come near
the Mediterranean.
" Sth Feb. — A continuous march of eleven hours through the Fay-
oum, passing by Toumiyeh, Senuris, Fidimin, Senhur, Abuxeh, and
Bisheh. Then, having crossed the river, a branch of the Bahar Yusuf,
we camped on the other side, at nightfall, a couple of miles short of
Kasr-el-Jibali. I preferred taking excuse of the night to stop, for I was
tired, and I knew that going on to the castle would mean sitting up till
midnight waiting for a sheep to be killed and cooked. The Fayoum
is a bad country to camp in, all black mud and crops, with hardly an
open spot ; and we were lucky, after travelling five or six miles looking
in vain, at last to pitch upon a dry unoccupied field on the edge of the
cliff above the river.
" At Toumiyeh the land has been taken possession of and cultivated
by some Jews, who got a concession from the Government. Otherwise
the town is much as it was in 1876, when I remember going to see a
poor notable of the town who was dying, they told us, of love. The
Mamur of the district in those days had taken from him forcibly one
of his wives, the youngest, last, and best beloved of them; and we
found him lying on his death-bed, surrounded by his friends lamenting
his loss, and he smelling an onion which he held in his hand.
"gth Feb. — I was already asleep last night when Abdallah Minjo-
war, hearing of my being in camp so near him, rode out to see me;
and I had to get up to receive him. We drank tea together and made
all the arrangements necessary for my onward journey. He will send
two men with me, Minshawi and another, with camels to El Wah (the
small Oasis), Siwah, Jerabub, and Jebel Akhdar, and will write letters
to the various Sheykhs, and see me through to Benhazi or Dernah.
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250 Abdallah Minjowar [1897
Abdallah is by position a grea*t man. He has an inunense territory and
lives in a castle, which if not mediaeval belongs to the age of Moham-
med Ali, and has a really beautiful stone gateway worthy of any cen-
tury. He tells me his father and his tribe came into Egypt first in
Mohammed Ali's time, having been invited here from Jebel Akhdar
in Tripoli. He was once there wtth his father, Minjowar, as a boy.
In appearance he reminds me of the Emir Abd el Kader, and is in
truth a man of high and generous character, a great personage here
on the desert edge. The Government has recently made a high road
for him to Medinet el Fayoum, of which he is proud I rode in to see
him after breakfast, and we are camped now inside his wall. Many
poor people, particularly boys and women, have run up to kiss my hand
yesterday and to-day. Expenses besides bersim, 10 pia^res. Yester-
day we passed an immense swarm of bees covering the rocks in a
ravine by the river.
'* All is satisfactorily arranged. Abdallah will send Minshawi with
us, and a second man with two camels, and a head man, Beseys, on a
delul. He is to carry letters of credence for us to the chief persons
at Siwah and Jerabub, and to the two principal Harabi Sheykhs of the
Jebel Akhdar, at whose tents I am promised to alight within twenty,
say thirty days. I shall not be able to see Senussi as he has left Jerabub,
but I shall see the head of the Zaghwiyeh, the Monastery there, and
be well received. We are to start on Thursday, nth, with four ardebs
of beans for the camels and barley for the mare. Salem is to go into
Medinet el Fayoum to-morrow, to get what things are still required,
as nothing will be procurable anywhere beyond. I have spent the day
slugging in my tent — very hot, with many flies, an object of atten-
tion for the villagers, and of attentions from Abddlah, his relations and
friends. Beseys, who is to go with me, is an oldish man, with a
rugged, ugly face, but I think that he will do. Minshawi we know
already. Abd-el-Salaam has left us. He was too old for the journey,
and required too much in the way of comfort, and did too little in
the way of work. Also Abdallah objected to him, and he himself
was inclined to leave, so I paid him his five days, and he is gone.
" We spent the evening talking, principally with a very intelligent man
of fellah origin, and of good education, who had been an Arabist, and
now is living here, cultivating a few feddans, which Abdallah has let
him have more or less as a charity. He gave us his views of Egyptian
politics, which are exactly Arabi's old ones. It is refreshing to hear
them in these days. Old Beseys listened with an occasional word of
approval, but Abdallah was sent to sleep by it and retired.
" Kasr-el-Jibali is a place of religion, and it being Ramadan, prayer
goes on nearly all day long, from an hour before sunrise, when a kind
of matins is dianted by a select few, till sunset, when there is a general
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1897] A Place of Piety 251
service attended by everybody. The singing is far from good, as
each worshipper intones in his own key, and the eflfect is not unlike that
of the old village hymn-singing of fifty years ago in England. There
is even a certain non-conformist popular character about it, which is
different from anything I have heard elsewhere. The mosque is a
new one, buift close to the castle, in excellent taste. It might be a
hundred or two hundred years old for all one can tell from its archi-
tecture. It has no minaret, and is a plain square buttressed building,
with a slight ornament on the top and lancet windows. We are
camped too near it for quiet, and have been exposed all day to the
curiosity of prayer-goers. Also the ground is very dirty, and life is
made difficult with flies. Indoors, in the castle, it is hardly better, for
the guest rooms are built for the summer, and are cold to sit in, being
away from the sun. So I am obliged to wait on in my tent till the
hospitable pleasure of Abdallah is exhausted, and I have his permission
to begin my march. These days of hospitable waiting in towns and
villages are a heavy price one has to pay for the joys of desert travel-
ling. But my departure is promised for to-morrow at noon. Suli-
man's expenditure in provisions for the journey comes to 275 piastres,
something under £3.
" iifA Feb. — Away at last in the highest of spirits, with a cool west-
erly wind blowing in our faces. The camels arrived early, and I ob-
tained Abdallah's permission, dear good man, to mount and go. When
all was settled I told him I wished to have a few words with him alone ;
and we went into the great room of the castle, and I told him I was
very anxious to see, if not the Sheykh el Senussi, who has gone south
to Kufra, at leaA one of the principal Sheykhs of the tarik (the reli-
gious order) at Jerabub, and I begged him to give me a letter for one
of them. ' You know,' I said, ' that I have for a long time been with
you at heart, of the mumemn, but I have not borne witness for
reasons you will understand. I wish to ask ceitain questions of the
Sheykhs of the Senussia, and to understand their teaching, and it
seems to me that the members of the tarik are the only good Moslems
in the world, or at any rate are the bes?t' The good man readily as-
sented, and showed me much affection, and told me that he had al-
ready written to the head of the community at Jerabub, introducing
me as the son of Hajji Batran of Aleppo, for he thought that would
give me a favourable reception. But I begged him to write again and
tell the Sheykh the truth of the case, that I was an Englishman who
desired instruction, and he has accordingly done so, though he has
left the other letters, those written to the Harabi Sheykhs of the Jebel
Akhdar, as they were with my name as Ibn Batran. Fortunately I
knew Hajji Batran when at Aleppo, or rather I knew his son, Hajji
Mahmud, and may, perhaps, be able to personate a grandson from
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252 Adballah Provides Letters [1897
so far away. A cousin of /.bdallah's, one Ali, who accompanied me
on horseback as far as this camp, has given me particulars of the
arrangement made and tells me that it is necessary, inasmuch as the
Arabs of the Jebel Akhdar bitterly hate all of European race, whereas,
if presented as a relation of Hajji Batran, who had married a haiherieh,
townswoman, of Demah, I should be accepted as a relation. The Han-
nadi, he explained, were of the Beraza dan, the same as the Harabi.
There was a son Naif bom to Batran; and I must personate him. I
do not like this. But Ali said there was real danger in goii^ among
people so wild as his mountain kinsmen; and he besought me to be
content with Siwah, and to turn back from there by the sea-coast
route to Mariut. I am, however, in the mood for an adventure,
dangerous or not." [N.B. It will be seen that these letters of Abdal-
lah, whatever their precise nature, were unfortunately conceived, and
brought about the misunderstanding which led to the attack made on
me at Siwah.]
" We are encamped five miles from Kasr-el-Jibali in a bit of tamarisk
underwood well screened from the wind, at the outmost edge of Nile
irrigation in the direction of the Oases — how happy to be at last alone I
The Nile wa'ter reaches no farther westwards. A little nm of it feeds
the last fields, which are of wheat, barley, and helbeh (a sort of clover).
On the helbeh Yemama is turned out to graze, and the camels eat it
brought in to them. The two new camels have arrived, sturdy little
beasts of the Western type, brown both, and rough haired — not beau-
tiful, but good. The men, too, are of a wholly other type from that
east of the Nile. Suliman and his two Howeytat companions have
almost a look of breeding contrasted with them, while All's mare, of
which he is proud, as being of western blood, is a plain barb, honesftly
shaped, but of no distinctive type. Beauty is the natural gift, to desert
man and desert beast, only of peninsular Arabia.
" I2th Feb. — Abdallah appeared again last night, having been pre-
ceded by his younger son, a pleasant youth of mixed type — the son
of his jari (concubine) Salem said — who had dined with me. Though
grown up, the young man has never seen more of the world than
Medinet el Fayoum and El Wah, not even Cairo or the Nile. Abdallah
has a separate establishment with the boy's mother close by here. He
and I embraced aflfectionately at parting. He has done everything in
his power to further my wishes about the journey and has brought
seven or eight letters which he has written to various persons on my
route, including the most importarft of all, one to Sidi Abu Seyf, the
head prior of the Jerabub monastery, Senussi's right hand. He has
entrusted me to old Beseys, who is one of the confraternity, and who
is to explain to Abu Seyf how matters stand with me religiously. ' Abu
Seyf,' Abdallah said, ' is as my own heart to me, and he will treat you
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1897J Wady Rayyan 253
as mysdf/ Letters, too, have been written for the two principal
Bedouin Sheykhs of the Harabi in Jebel Akhdar, and I am to go on to
Benghazi if I like or return by Demah and the sea route to Skanderia.
" We started to-day at sunrise and I walked an hour or more on foot,
it being cold, before mounting my deluL Our course south by west,
then turning more westward. A% eleven we came to the edge of Wady
Rayyan, a great chaotic depression from 50 to 150* feet below the Nile.
It is absolutely barren, and there is no trace in it of Nile mud or clay
of any kind, most of the surface soil being drift-sand and grit, with
the bare limestone rocks showing here and there. This effectually
disproves the theory that Rayyan was the Lake Maeris of Herodotus,
it is nothing but a dried up sebkha, like the Jof and many another
desert depression. There are curious rocks in it set in lines, which
look exactly like the remains of buildings; but they are all, I think,
natural. Nor do I believe that any part of the Valley was ever in-
habited except perhaps by hermits, who planted the pahn tress which
still struggle to live on near the springs. Descending into the belly of
the wady, we quickly found ourselves among nefuds (sandhills) which
run across it here and there in lines from north-west to south-east,
and make effective fortifications against camels. Here Suliman's desert
craft became of service (for the three Harabis with us were useless
for anything but pottering along a track) and he and I went forward
to look out the easiest places for the camels to cross, while in the
steepest Suliman and Eid made paths for them slantwise in the deep
sand. The old camel man, Haj Abd-el-Rahman, not choosing to fol-
low us, was left behind, and we consequently had to camp some four
miles short of the main spring, but in a nice spot, a deep hollow under
sand hillocks and tarfa clumps. This part of the wady has vegetation,
tarfa, ghurkud, erta — none, however, in green leaf — much of it
dead, firewood abundant. Barom. 50 feet below the Nile water at
Kasr-el-Jibali.
" 13th Feb. — At sunrise we started, after a good night's rest for
mc under my hejeyra (my carpet shelter, the one with a scorpion
worked on it), and on to the spring. This lies due south of the khusm
(snout) of Rayyan, at the extreme edge of the vegetation, a number
of bush palms together, with a lovely spring welling up in a sand-
bottomed basin, the water running in a little stream for twenty yards,
when it disappears. The two Harabis, Beseys and Minshawi, attribtfte
to it miraculous virtues. The water only runs, they say, when travel-
lers come to drink, and it varies in volume with the number of their
camels. When there are many camels you have only to encourage it
by calling to ft ' Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha I ' and it comes bubbling up so fast
that you can water 200 camels in the afternoon. It is hot by night,
cold by day. To-day, the wind being cold, it was lukewarm, rather
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254 History of the Senussis [1897
flat water, ill-tasted but not salt, therefore ' sweet,* as desert waters
go. Yemama drank well of it, and we took away two girbehs full, in
addition to our two of Nile water, as this is the last water until we
come to El Wah. Some * sons of dog who have no fear of God ' had
fired the palms and left some of them in ruins, but the palm immediately
over the spring was untouched in flower. We found tracks of
gazelles, hares, jerboas, and foxes there, but no recent traces of men
or camels. The wady is little frequented.
" From the spring we turned south-west and mounted by an even
slope to the top of the nukbeh (pass), which we found barred by a
complete rampart of nefud, which we had some difficulty in surmount-
ing — then on and on through a desolate land wholly barren, a cliff on
our left hand, until at the asr we came to a singular rock, exquisitely
poised, about tweiAy feet high, of friable lime stone worn away on
every side, below. A mile or two beyond this we descried a little
pasture shgda with a seyyal tree. Here at 4.15 we encamped.
" Beseys gave me some information this afternoon as we rode to-
gether. The elder Senussi, he tells me, came from Fez and died at Jera-
bub in the year a.h. 1271. Beseys saw him, an ancient man whh a
small white beard, regular features ' like your own.* He was 1 10 or
120 years old when he died. He left two sons, Mohammed Sidi el
Mahdi and Sherif. The latter died last year. The elder left Jerabub
in anger with the Sultan of Turkey after this, and has gone with a
few disciples to form a new Zaghwiyeh in the South. I underwood him
to say that the quarrel was in consequence of the stopping of a subsidy,
but I may have heard him incorrectly as he has lost his front teeth and
is hardly intelligible. He told me that from Fez to the Hejaz there
were about 150 Zaghwiyehs containing each from twenty to thirty
brethren akhwan. People exaggerated the numbers because there were
many lay servitors, who cultivated the crops and bought or sold for
the brothers. There is no brotherhood at Kasr-el-Jibali. Abdallah's
grandfather was the first who came to Egypt. He became awely (saint)
and is buried in the koubbah at Kasr-el-Jibali. He left four sons,
of whom Minjowar was the eldest.
" 14th Feb. — A long monotonous tramp from sunrise to sunset across
a gravelly hamad (plain), no leafy thing all day. Camped in the
plain about 400 feet above the sea — 30 miles.
**i5tt Feb. — Again from sunrise to sunset. Passed a beautiful
wady with seyyal trees — gholam, shgda, nossi — Khabra Balbal — then
the Bahr bela ma (river without water), whose height is 350 feet above
the sea. A long day's tracking of the road obliterated with nefuds —
hyaena, wolf, and fox tracks. We camped in the nefud.
" 16th Feb. — We are encamped at last in the basin of the Wahat
(oases), barom. 315 feet above the sea and 300 below the sand-ridge
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at the top of the pass, where we first caught sight of the valley. This
was a happy spectacle, a break in the brown rags of the desert fore-
ground, dipping down and showing blue hills beyond. From this pass
we went down by a gradual descent for a couple of hours. We are
still some miles from the two villages of the oasis, with their palm
groves showing blackly against the rocks beyond them. We are en-
joying an afternoon's rest quietly in the shadow of a great rock half
a mile from a spring. The sandy ground is pleasant, with hillocks
tufted with green rough grass, 6kresk and rukeyb, tamarisk, ithel, and
dwarf palm. There are two springs, one on a mound 20 feet high, but
the water was flat and bad — the other sweet, which runs for a few
yards in open ground, with a little greenness round it — no trees.
" It is agreed that from this point I am to adopt a S3aian identity as
Sakr ibn Zeydun el Helali, related by marriage to Sidi Abd el Kader at
Damascus, and to Hajji Batran at Aleppo, with a title of Bey from the
Dowlah, travelling to see his relations at Demah and Benghazi. I shall
not go into the villages here, so that no questions may be asked by
ofiicials. Beseys, too, is anxious to keep clear of them.
" I like Beseys. As we rode ahead of our party yesterday on our
deluls, I talked to him about religion and about my wish for a hermit's
life in the desert, and he much applauded the idea and promised to
take me to a spiritual father of his own, Sidi Maymum, who lived
just such a life in the Jebel Akhdar. The wely would put me in the
way of a true vocation and give me all the advice I wanted. I asked
him about Jerabub and the Zaghwiyeh there. He assures me the
whole of the Akhwan have left it. Sherif, the second son of Senussi,
followed his brother Sidi el Mahdi in his flight southwards, but came
back to die at Jerabub, and is buried there with his father. Abu Seyf
upon this left Jerabub with the rest of his following, and now there are
only lay brothers and poor people there who look after the palms.
Beseys is very pious himself, and prays every morning for some time
as he rides. While we were talking eame^ly on these pious matters
we missed our track in the nefuds, and were some time finding it again.
It is exciting work picking out the cold scent of an old track by odds
and ends of camel jelleh and doubtful landmarks, as exciting as fol-
lowing hounds, and we became keen and jealous. But Beseys is a
really good old man, and I think takes a true interest in my conversion.
It is forty-three years since he travelled the road before, being then a
boy of an age young enough to need being told not to lag behind, or
get separated from the rest. That would make him no older than I
am, but in appearance he is quite an * ancient of days.' We got back
eventually into the right road by foUovning a hyaena track. Hyaenas,
jackals and foxes in the desert are fond of frequenting caravan routes
for what they may chance to pick up, and know them well — the first
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256 The Utile Oasis El Wah [1897
for the hap of a dead beast, the foxes for dropped dates. We passed
a place where foxes had been gathering scraps at the site of an encamp-
ment. At Balbal yesterday there were fresh gazelle tracks, besides
larks singing and wagftails quite at home. There are no Bedouins in
these deserts as there is no water and little pasturage. The thorn trees
are consequently uncut, and the nossi grass of last spring stands un-
eaten. Balbal is a beautiful spot. The Bahr is much less interesting,
being merely one of those long serpentine depressions so common in
the desert. This one being 350 feet above sea level cannot have ever
been a mouth of the Nile. Its bottom is of limestone without a trace
of Nile mud. A caravan carrying dates was just setting out from
the spring as we arrived.
" 17th Feb, — We have moved camp to a spring just north of Bawiti,
which is the last village of the Little Oasis westwards.
" Last night I had a long ride alone to get a look at the Oasis, climb-
ing on Yemama to the top of the Harra which stands like an island in
its midst. The top of it is level ground, smooth enough to canter on
from end to end, one of the loneliest places I ever saw, for I crossed no
single track of beast or bird or reptile, nor was there trace of men hav-
ing ever been there, though so near the villages. It is apparently vol-
canic. One gets a good bird's-eye view from it of the palm groves and
the four villages, Sabu, Mandija and the double village of Kasr and
Bawiti. It is clear that much more land was cultivated formerly. The
ithcl and tamarisk clumps must have been private property. They are
being fast destroyed now. There is a deal of rough camel pasture in
the Oasis, so that we grazed as we went.
** I met a man cutting palm leaves to-day to make matting and asked
him to get us a guide to Siwah, as neither Beseys nor Haj Abderrah-
man, nor yet Minshawi know the road any farther. I was riding alone
in front on Udeyha, and having stopped was sleeping under a palm
tree outside Bawiti when I was wakened by a man greeting me. He
was a Berber from Farafra who offered to be of use and showed us
the spring hard by. Now we have sent Minshawi and Salem in to
market and are camped in the sand hills.
" In the evening I rode round the Oasis with Minshawi, but did not
enter the village, as the Government Chiauss has been inquisitive about
me, and I think it prudent to run no risks. There is nice half a grazing
here. Everywhere there are bunches of palms with springs more or
less in use for gardens, some of which are beautiful with large olive
trees, esshaar, sont, and safsaf (willow). The palms are the most
vigorous I ever saw, having, as the saying is, ' their feet in the water,
their heads in the fire.' We passed the ruins of a building, probably
Roman.
" i8^A Feb. — Haj Abderrahman has left us to go home. He would
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1897] The Slave Ostnan far Guide 257
have taken the two camels back with him but I would not allow it, as
they are Abdallah's, not his, and I told him I would be answerable for
the price of the beasts. He was unwilling to go farther. Now Min-
shawi has brought us a tall Soudani, Osman, from Siwah who will
travel with us, and we hope to be off not later than noon. There are
many tracks of foxes and jackals about, and I heard an owl at dawn.
" Off at 10.30, and marched till sunset. The nukbe lies due north,
and is steep. There was no marked track till we crossed the caravan
road and turned west. The plain on the upper ground is an absolutely
barren hamad, gravel and sand grit, quite devoid of life — 500 to 600
feet above the sea. No sign of recent travellers on the road. A very
cold north-west wind. Camped under lee of a low tell.
" igth Feb. — Thermom. 42® and a bitter wind. I find that Osman
the Soudani has only been this way once before, and that twenty-five
years ago, and travelling by night, and in the opposite direction to
what we are now goit^. He is a Falata from Bomu, which he left
when seventeen years old *on account of a war.' [He had been taken
as a slave, and had been carried by his captors to Merzouk, the northern
oasis, and ultimately to Siwah,. whence he had. escaped to El Wah,
travelling by night, and hiding in the daytime. For this reason he
knew almost nothing of the road, except the general direction. He
did not tell me this till afterwards.] He has been astray in the oases
ever since, and may now be about fifty. I like him as he is plain
spoken, and with an agreeable black face, nearly pure negro blood,
though he boasts of the Falata as Arabs. The Falata have a Sultan
of their own, he says, and know nothing of the Dowlah.
"Eleven hours' march to-day — thirty-two miles. Camped amid
driving sand, barely protected from the wind.
" 2oih Feb, — Crossed several nefuds to-day all running north-west
and south-east, which obliged us to travel far south, and then north-
west again — then came to another deep depression where the caravan
track disappeared for fully ten miles. We had much trouble following
it, but by the help of skeleton camels recovered it at the nukbe beyond.
At one place we came across an old meneil (encampment) with a dead
camel, and the wooden frame of a hedajeh (camel saddle) all at least
two years old. But Eid and Minshawi collected the jelleh (camel
dung) finding it still good for firing, and Suliman made prize of the
saddletree. Beyond the nukbe at four o'clock we came for the first time
since leaving El Wah, on a bit of camel pasture, sreygd and camomile
and nossi. The nossi, though a year old, had not been grazed, but I
found the hole and track of a desert mouse. Yemama eagerly devoured
the nossi. Osman surprised me by saying of her, ' Her sire is perhaps
koheyl' I find that he knows all about the horse breeds, Duheym,
Jilfa, and the rest. He assures me that in Bomou and Wadi they have
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2s8 We Lose Our Road [1897
thoroughbred koheyls, the great people as many as ten of them, besides
great multitudes of camels. We are encamped in a pleasing spot, with
just enough of the pasture to feed our ten camels.
" 2ist Feb. — To-day has been full of excitement for us. After about
four miles from our start we came to the edge of another great de-
pression, the nukbe being well marked with stone heaps pointing to a
corresponding nukbe beyond, about eight miles off. We went down,
therefore, confidently, though the track quickly disappeared. The de-
pression was choked with nefuds to our right, but to our left was clear,
the loose soil being composed mostly of old shells. Its height above the
sea at the lowest point was 100 feet. It soon, however, became plain
that we were out of the track, though the westerly direction was good,
and we had to cross a sebkha (salt swamp) with a treacherous bottom,
and climb a very steep gradient to the nukbe. Osman, nevertheless,
maintained that all was right, but soon we found ourselves in a wilder-
ness of nefuds. Here Osman's knowledge came to an end, and after
floundering over ridge after ridge for some time, he acknowledged that
he knew not where he was. We therefore sat down and called a coun-
cil, and having watered Yemama from the skins, somewhat solemnly,
for we felt that it was the last we could spare her, it was agreed that
Suliman and I should go forward alone scouting, either to come across
the track or find some height from which we might get sight of a land-
mark. It seemed an equal chance to try right or left for the track.
At starting we crossed the tracks of a gazelle, an ariel Suliman said,
and it seemed to me a good omen. After a while, bearing somewhat to
the right, we got out of the nefud, and on to a hard gravel, and I sent
Yemama along at a good pace in the direction of some hills to the west
north west, saying all the prayers I knew to my saints. Mohammedan
and Christian, for a good issue. Nor had I long to wait. At first it
seemed a very hopeless quest, with a brown horizon all round me and
low brown hills each like the other. But it was nice cantering with the
fresh wind in my face, and as I got on to higher ground the view
opened and I saw the hill I was following rise higher and higher ap-^
parently about five miles off. At a point of the plain where there was
a little mound I stopped and looked all round me. Far away to the
west there seemed to be a little break in the horizon, and examining
through my glasses I felt sure it was a wady, the wady of Sittarah
(where the water was said to be which we were looking for). Still it
might be a mistake, an effect of mirage, and I galloped back to Suliman,
who was following on my delul, to ask his opinion. We then both
agreed that we saw a wady with mounds of tarfa, perhaps palms, and
that this was our wady. So I sent him back with the good news and
to bring the camels on, and cantered on to the hill to get a better view.
From the top of it I saw everything, as I thought, clearly, the tarfa
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I1897] Deceived by th^ Mirage 259
mounds, the dark green wady, and the hill, blue beyond — almost like
the Nile valley.
"We were, therefore, in the highest spirits, and Suliman and the
camels having joined me at the foot of the hill, and he having also
climbed up and convinced himself, we went on singing with joy. Two
more hours, I thought, and we should be at the spring, and I led the
way over the intervening nefuds gaily. The sun was in our faces as
we topped the last of them, and saw at last the plain of our hopes
before us. Suliman and I looked in each other's faces blankly. There
was nothing at all of what we were expecting — only another long,
low, shining plain. The tarfa clumps had resolved themselves into as
many bare black stones, and nothing to break the horizon but a single
pyramidal hill far away, a full day's journey off. It was a bitter dis-
appointment. We asked Osman when he arrived with the camels
whether he recognized the valley as Sittarah, and he said ' no.' We
were worse lost than before. Nevertheless, we were convinced that
the valley must be still before us, and like an old hound Suliman ran
off to the left casting for some sign of it, and presently came, by ex-
traordinary good fortune, on a track, and then a mile or two still farther
on, at the very place where the black stones were which we had taken
for tarfa clumps, to our exceeding joy, lay the great caravan road — we
had not seen it for two days — running with at least a hundred parallel
camel paths bearing due westward. This, ' if not the work of the jdn'
we know must be our road. It led straight to the pyramidal hill, and
' there,* said Suliman, * the water will be.* So now we are camped at
sunset, once more praising God for his bounty, and in good heart and
hope. Old Beseys and all of them had given themselves up for lost.
They had made no complaint, but also had made no effort to find the
road, but had ridden silently — Beseys saying his prayers at intervals.
Perhaps they were heard in heaven." [N.B. What is very remarkable
in this adventure is that both Suliman and I, he being a master in desert
craft, having been deceived by the mirage, were so not to our own hurt
but to our advantage, for the apparent vegetation lay precisely where
the caravan road was emerging from the sand. The mirage in our case
saved us. Not that we were yet in great straits for water, except for
the mare, for we still had skins enough for our own drinking, and the
weather was cold. But, if we had failed to hit off Sittarah next day,
we should have soon been in sorry plight, for Sittarah is the only water
between El Wah and Siwah. What makes travelling without guides
so dangerous in the western desert is that the oases are mere cup-like
hollows in the plains, which one may pass to right or left of without sign
of their being near. There are almost no landmarks visible from the
plain, and the sands have encroached, obliterating the ancient roads,
which are most of them now abandoned. In former days the oases
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26o A Desert Tragedy [1897
must have been all inhabited, but are not so now. The sand drifts are
gradually overwhelming them. To pass by one of these and so miss the
water is for a caravan a terrible disaster.]
" 22nd Feb. — Close to our encampment we found the skeletons of
two donkeys, which Osman recognizes as connected with a gruesome
tale. Last year at El Wah, a witness being wanted in the affairs of a
certain khawajeh, probably a Greek, who had died there, the Egyptian
authorities, urged on by an officer of the Inglis, sent to Siwah for the
man, who was brought to El Wah with his wife and his two boys.
These, when the inquiry was over, wanted to return, and, notwithstand-
ing that it was summer, the man set out for Siwah with his family, and
his two donkeys carrying jars of water for the road. The donkeys,
however, broke down near Sittarah, doubtless here; the water was
finished, and the father sent the elder of the two boys forward with a
jar to Sittarah to bring them water. On his return the boy found his
mother and his brother already dead of thirst, while the father was still
alive. But having drunk, he too died, and the boy was left alone to
bury them and tell the tale. We found the graves by the roadside near
the donkey skeletons. These, Osman says, were the last who travelled
here, and it was two years ago.
" As I walked with Osman this morning he told me the story, and
also much about Burnou and Wadai. There are there, he assures me,
wild koheyl. The Arabs catch them at their watering places in pitfalls
or traps which catch them by the leg. They keep these horses tied up
fast for three days, then put bits into their mouths and ride them.
They can go ten days without water. This he told me in almost the
same words as those used by Leo Africanus 400 years ago. I asked
about their colours, and he said they were bay, white, and dark; they
had long manes and tails ; some Arabs ate them, calling them halal. I
asked him about the lant (mentioned by Leo Africanus), and he said,
* Oh, yes el ant/ and described it as red (bay) above with a white belly
and dark markings between the red and the white, like a gazelle — the
male alone with horns, big like a cow. I am convinced this is the Eland
of natural history. There are also elephants, lions, and giraffes. The
elephant is half halal (permitted food), half haram (forbidden food),
the fore toes halal. He has eaten the flesh. He described the giraffe
as a tall camel with two small horns. The Falata, he said, hunt all
these — and the gazelle with hawks. They ride koheyls after the
ostrich and the lant. All this is most interesting. There are also wild
asses.
"All this time we were following the caravan road, and at about
eleven we sighted bushes — this time real bushes — and I galloped on
some three or four miles to the dry edge of the Lake of Sittarah. It
lay exactly as Suliman had said, under the pyramidal hill. This eastern
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i897] Finding Water in the Sand 261
end of the lake (which is a salt lake and quite undrinkable) is deaily a
paradise of wild beasts. The tracks of the arid gazdle were like those
of a flock of sheep, and of the hares, like those of rabbits at Newbuild-
ings in the snow, round every bush. And there were jackal tracks, and
the track of a wolf and of a wild boar quite fresh. I was surprised to
find the jackal tracks, as I had never seen them before far from in-
habited places. But thdr being here was later explained by the dates,
which they doubtless feed on. Of bushes I found ghurkhud and aghur,
the latter always a sign of former cultivation, tamarisks on a mound or
two, and a single palm bush. I should have liked to encamp here on
the chance of seeing an arid ; but it was necessary to find the water
first. Osman could not recollect where the spring was, except that it
was under palms, and about two miles farther on palms were visible.
So I once more cantered on. The first palms stood in a swamp near the
lake, just opposite the pyramidal hill, with blue water beyond them for
quite a mile. The swamp, too, was a main home of the wild beasts,
but as yet I saw no birds. I was driven out of it by the midges and
mosquitoes, which assailed me in battalions from the reeds, and I was
glad to get back to the desert and wait there for the camels. When
they arrived we all dispersed in search of the spring, which Osman
could not find, examining palm clump after palm clump. At the west-
em edge of the lake there is no marsh, and the nefuds come down to
the water's edge with only a fringe of reeds and tufts of palms, which
we found covered with good fruit. Of these we plucked and ate. The
first hopeful sign of water was when with a rush and a scream out of a
palm clump flew a blackbird, a real English blackbird. I had never
seen one in the desert, or in Egypt, except in my own garden of Sheyk;h
Obeyd. This was a proof there must be good water, and soon after
Suliman discovered good water by digging in the sand to his elbow
at a place which seemed frequented, and Osman found more under the
very last palm of the Oasis westwards. The springs had been choked
with sand drift, but were easily dug out.
" Minshawi, meanwhile, had got another supply from the shore of
the lake. The lake itself is salt, like all desert lakes, but by digging a
few yards away from the edge, drinkable, though brackish, water can
be had ; and of this Yemama drank her fill. She was very thirsty, as
yesterday she had been on half rations. We all fdt very happy, and
agreed to spend two nights and enjoy the water. There is all here a
man with a few she-camds can require to live on, good pasture, good
water, and good dates. The lake is covered with flamingos, and I saw
a heron and heard wild geese. I think I saw pelicans. I also saw one
chrysippus butterfly, but no land bird except the one blackbird. It
would be a paradise for a hermit, but for the gnats. These came out
in swarms at sunset, and drove me out of camp, and a mile away into the
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262 The Sittarah Oasis [1897
nefud, where I spent the night alone with Suliman and our two nagas.
Of all the hermitages I have yet found this is the best. It is never
visited by man. There are no Arabs anywhere within a hundred miles,
and it is very beautiful — a winter hermitage, I mean, for in summer
it must be a furnace. It is hot even now.
*' 23rd Feb. — After a delightful night I walked at sunrise to the top
of the highest nefud, from which the whole lake can be seen. It is
very interesting. Qearly the Oasis has been inhabited, but has been
overwhelmed by the nefuds advancing on it from the south and west.
The lake may be seven miles long, and is very beautiful. The northern
shore is bounded by low cliffs, the ancient limit doubtless of the lake,
which is shrinking, and will some day be a mere chaos of nefud, as so
many others are. It was somewhere in this desert, they say, that
Cambyses disappeared with his army. I can well believe it, for we
were within a little of such a misfortune two days ago. If the weather
had been less clear and cool I could not have seen the valley, and with
a sand wind we might easily have perished. Now all seems easy and
delightful. In the afternoon I went out for a ride, intending to visit
the pyramidal hill, but got into a quicksand, crossing over a half dry
arm of the lake, out of which I had some difficulty in dragging my
mare. The blackbird I saw again at the same place, and a kestrel. It
is so hot to-day that I had the tent pitched for a shade — the first time
we have used it, as I sleep under my carpet shelter. The barometer
shows the lake to be 120 feet below sea level.
" 24^/1 Feb. — Started at sunrise, believing our difficulties to be now
over, but we took a wrong track, which led us south-west instead of
farther north, towards some distant palms we had sighted an hour after
leaving. This took us to what I believe to be the oasis of Bahre)m —
at least such an Oasis is marked on my map. [N.B. A very excellent
German map.] This Oasis is very like Sittarah, though with two lakes
instead of one — whence its name. Osman pronounced this to be
Araj, and said we were now close to Zeytoun and Siwah, which I knew
could not be the case, and was sure when we came to the second lake
it could only be Bahre)m. The road, too, westwards, we found blocked
by a great sebkha (a dry salt marsh), and we were obliged to turn
north and travel several hours to recover the right road. Fortunately
we fell in soon with the track of a donkey, and two men who had been
to the oasis, we think, to gather dates, a track of about ten days old,
which we followed. The barometer at Bahreyn showed exactly o*'
above the sea. The donkey track led us to a nukbeh, where we fell
in with a well-marked road bearing north-west by north over a plateau
of limestone hillocks, each about ten feet high, like the crested waves
of the British Channel in rough weather, with the space between them
sand. The road was carefully marked with rijms (cairns), and easy
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to follow, and I cantered gaily on to find a camping place, where we
now snugly are, screened from the north-east wind. It is fortunate
we found the donkey track, or we might not have hit oflf the road.
Yemama is now in excellent condition, and ate up her two melwas of
com during the night. The camels were all watered before starting.
At Bahreyn to-day I saw a kite and a raven.
*' I find Beseys is very unwilling now to go to Jerabub, being afraid,
I think, of displeasing the Akhwan. We have agreed to find out at
Zeytoun or Siwah whether Abu Seyf is at Jerabub or not, and to pass
by without alighting if he should be absent.
" 2ph Feb. — To-day we are in a worse plight than ever. We started
very early, taking up our path of yesterday, which brought us in a
couple of hours to the end of the limestone plain, and to my great de-
light to the edge of a new and very deep oasis which I knew must be
the Araj we were looking for. Araj has no lake, only a little standing
water and a tamarisk marsh. But a vast number of palms are scat-
tered over a wide basin with many isolated clumps, very beautiful, in
the sand. It was no case here of the nefud having destroyed the vil-
lages, as in the other oases, but of abandonment, one cannot say why.
There are palms enough left to support many villages. The cliffs here
are on the south and west sides, the sand slopes on the north and east.
Still on the track of the donkey and the two men we chevied along the
edge of the jungle north westwards, the ground covered with the tracks
of gazelles, hares, and jackals. Of birds I saw only three, mourning
chats, black with white beaks and rumps — nothing else alive. The
depth of the oasis puzzled my barometer. It must be about 150 feet
below the sea. From the bottom the track led up by some clumps of
palms, where I am sure there must be water underground, across deep
nefuds to the opposite nukbe marked by some wonderful rocks — one
quite square, white as marble, and with curious architectural markings,
another like a tall chessman, both 100 feet high at least, their tops level
with the plain above, a splendid hermitage where one might find shade
and shelter at all hours and in every weather. They are geologically of
limestone, with layers of shells, their tops black, like lava. One layer
of the chessman, one of those round white flakes, Suliman calls dirahem
(money). This place was the wildest, the most romantic, the most
supernatural in its natural structure I have ever seen, an abode of all
the Jan.
" I cantered up the sand slope to the top of the pass, elated at having
found Araj corresponding so well with my map, and being in front
forgot to give orders for water to be looked for, and the girbehs filled.
Hence our present trouble. For on gaining the upper plain, instead of
the well-marked track we had expected, we found nothing but a wind-
swept plateau of nefud interspersed with mounds of stone, where the
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264 We Are in a Miserable Plight [1897
donkey track speedily disappeared or was lost, nor could we ever again
find it. We were left now to our sole wits and the mercy of God, for
the wind was blowing hard from the north-cast and was drifting the
sand hopelessly. Suliman, now in command, recommended descending
towards some hills to the north-west, and this brought us to a new
formation of limestone ground, arranged in flat masses with sharp
edges, the most abominable imaginable interspersed with sand. Across
this we floundered with our camels for several hours, when Suliman,
having climbed to the top ^f a low tell, announced that he had seen a
valley with palms, and it was resolved, much against old Osman's wish,
that we should cross the whole valley on the chance of striking a track
near the hills. The trend of the valley was westwards, and if it was
the beginning of the Siwah valley, Suliman argued, it must have a
road passing up it. So Suliman and I went scouting with the tall but-
tresses of a crag to west-north-west for our object. Now we have al-
most reached these, but have found no sign of road or life — only a
poor wagtail lost in the strong wind. We have camped for the night,
feeling ourselves to be out of all reckoning (for this according to the
map should have been the Siwah valley, yet it is absolutely without trace
of human passage, old or new). We are camped in a hollow near two
seyyal trees, ill screened from the wind, and in very miserable plight.
** 26th Feb, — I spent a restless, uncomfortable night, disturbed at
finding that of our five water skins three were already empty, and re-
proaching myself with having let the men pass Araj without replenish-
ing. I felt myself responsible, too, from having taken the direction of
our route out of Osman's hands. Old Bescys and the rest, except my
own Bedouins, were clearly of opinion that I was wrong. The wind,
too, raged furiously, and kept me waking, and in the darkness I im-
agined all kinds of disaster, more especially when I found the stars
overhead obscured with drifting sand. I said prayers to all my saints
and repented of my sins, and so I think did all the party. Once in the
night the sky cleared and I got a sight of the Pole Star and made a
line on the ground with my camel stick as a guide in the morning, for
my pocket compass is out of order and cannot be relied on. There were
even moments when I thought gloomily of ordering a retreat to Araj.
" In the morning, however, more courageous counsels prevailed, and
we took our due course west towards the khusm (the headland) deter-
mined to go straight forward and solve the question of this being the
Siwah valley or no. Nor were we long in suspense. We had hardly
gone a mile when, riding in front, I came upon a little single path lead-
ing to some seyyal trees which had been pollarded by Bedouins, a sign
of human neighbourhood, and presently, to my delight, to the old cara-
van road, reappearing plain and unmistakable. It relieved us from all
anxiety, and following it we found ourselves by mid-day at the first
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, bushes of the Siwah oasis." [N.B. It is well here to note, as a gen-
eral rule of travelling in the desert without guides that, when looking
for a lost camel track or road, there is more chance of finding it at the
point of a headland in the wady than elsewhere, for the reason that it
is there that the shortest cut would be made in rounding a trend of the
hills. This justified Suliman in making for the khusm yesterday.]
" Soon afterwards we came to sebkhas, where there were tracks of
many pasturing camels, and then within sight of the oasis of Zeytoun
and the Senussi Zaghwiyeh standing on high ground a mile or more
from its palm trees. As it was near sunset we resolved to rest here and
have made a pleasant camp under some ghurkhud bushes. El hamdul
Illah.
*' 27th Feb. — In half an hour from leaving camp we came to the
Zaghwiyeh, and Yemama started at the sight of strange human beings,
the first she had seen since leaving El Wah, who came out to receive us.
These were servants and slaves of the monastery, and we were shown
by them the well where we watered mare and camels — a small well
just outside the buildings. These were not different from an ordinary
small village, a score of low square houses with a mosque attached.
The servants may have been half-a-dozen or more, an unhandsome set
of men, especially those of the Siwah type, which is one of the ugliest in
the world, yellow skinned, brown haired, snub nosed, hare-lipped and
light eyed (such one imagines the Huns to have been). In marked
contrast to them was the ' brother,* who came out presently to entertain
us, an Arab of the Western type, not unlike my friend Abdallah
Mijower, with a singularly pleasant smile. One could imagine him
having great influence with the people, He had a look of goodness
which could not be mistaken. His name, he told us, was Sidi Hamid
of the Mujabara tribe of Aujla. He has with him only one fellow
brother, a Siwan, inferior to him in every way. He gave us all the
news of the brotherhood, how that, after Sidi Sherif 's death, Sidi Abu
Seyf had also died, leaving Sidi el M6dani head of the community at
Jerabub. He said we should have no difficulty in our journey to Ben-
ghazi. It was four easy days to Jerabub, and from thence we could
go straight to Bir Menus in nine days, with one water on the sixth day.
He would like to go with us himself. He was very kind to me, and
though he did not eat with us, it being Ramadan, he gave me some good
gasali dates and some pomegranates, and milk and dates to the servants,
who were not fasting. Then he called his fellow brother Mohammed,
and they recited a fatha for our safe journey, all standing together out-
side the monastery, and we went much pleased on our way.
" Old Beseys tells me it is their practice to entertain all comers for
two nights with milk and dates — otherwise to occupy themselves only
with prayer and the superintending of the palm cultivation. (Cardinal
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266 We Camp South of Siwah Town [1897
Lavigerie's White Fathers imitated in this their way of life.) One
might do worse in the world than be a Senussi brother. Every difficulty
seems now to be in the way of solution. Beseys is <:onfident of ac-
complishing our journey by Jerabub to Benghazi.
" Thus we travelled till four o'clock, when we reached the first iso-
lated garden outside Siwah, where Beseys found a friend, who invited
us to stay with him, and we should have done well to accept, and pres-
ently we encamped for the night just outside the Eastern town, of the
two of which Siwah is composed, half a mile away south of it in the
sand among some groups of palms.
" 28//i Feb. — A day of disaster. Last night after dark, Mohammed
Said, Omdeh of the Eastern town, came out to see us; a fat, well-
dressed, dark- faced man whom Suliman pronounced to be ' a splendid
prince.* We had bought a lamb (for Sheykh Obeyd), and Suliman
cooked it for us, and Mohammed Said ate of it largely with a friend
and he had just got up to say good-night and go, having promised us
a guide and all we wanted for next day, when we saw lights coming,
and a number of persons, horse and foot, and the word passed that it
was the hakim (government representative), a maown (police officer),
the chief man being away at Skanderia. He was polite and amiable,
a slender man with no palate to his mouth, speaking almost in a
whisper, and with him a number of Siwans who, as I understand now,
were Sheykhs of the Western town. These all sat down, and I, too,
was obliged to stay out their visit while coffee was being made. Old
Beseys, as his way is, made most of the conversation, and he began very
imprudently to tell them we intended going to Benghazi. The sheykhs,
upon this, became curious and inquisitive. Old Beseys strung tales of
my being from Nejd, and I was obliged to join in to the extent of sa3ring
that I was from beyond Sham (Damascus), between Sham and Bagdad,
and my name Sakr. They were curious to know my business, but I
answered vaguely, also as to our road. I did not for a moment suppose
there was anything hostile in their intention, and they drank their coffee
and said good night amiably enough, the only disagreeable incident being
that during the night a thief came to my tent and stole away my carpet
shelter, which I had used to seat my visitors upon outside. It had been
carelessly put back at the door of the tent, and the night was one for
thieves, being without -a moon. I was awoke out of my sleep by Suli-
man*s shout, who had seen the thief stealing away between the palms,
but too late to stop him with his prize. I was put out at this and all
the more resolved to move away early — Mohammed Said had sug-
gested it — to another place * near his castle.* This castle was barely
half a mile away (to the west), a country house built upon a rock, and
we accordingly moved camp by daylight and pitched the tent a hundred
yards from the house on open ground.
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1897] We Are Attacked by the Skuans 267
" I had just settled that the servants were to go to town to buy what
we wanted when Suliman came to my tent to tell me of an armed party
approaching from the town towards us, and that we ought to get our
guns ready. I loaded my gun, and then looked through my glass, and
saw in fact a little army, some 200 men, on horse and on foot (and
with camels), advancing from the Western town, which, though evi-
dently armed, I could not believe had any intention hostile to ourselves.
The servants were for flight with the camels, and old Beseys and Salem
and the younger Arabs disappeared. Only Suliman and the good old
slave Osman stayed with me, and, seeing it was absurd to think of
defence, I told them to put up their weapons, and sat down again in
my tent waiting the event. Presently the Siwans arrived, and I heard
them call out ' Salaam aleykum,' and * aman,' and supposed it to be all
right. But half a minute after I found myself surrounded by a number
of men, mostly Soudanis, who were pulling the tent over my ears. On
seeing me sitting there, they rushed forward and caught hold of me by
the wrists and pulled me to my feet. I expostulated with them, and
they became more violent, and though I made no defence except in
words one of them struck me a blow on the side of the netk and others
began to try and pull my clothes off me, others pointed guns and pistols
at me, and there was a vast hubbub and confusion, one dragging me one
way and another another. I received several blows on the head and
one from some weapon on the cheek. All I could make out of their
cries (for there was an immense uproar and they were shouting the
most part in a language — Berberi — I did not understand), was some-
thing about Sidi-el-Mahdi.
" There were half-a-dozen sheykhs on horseback, with an old white-
bearded man brandishing a drawn sword, others with blunderbusses and
every kind of impossible weapon. I recognized in them several of
those who had drunk coffee with us the night before. My captors
hustled me towards the town, tearing me nearly in pieces in their desire
to get my pistol from my belt, which at last they tore away. The
sheykhs on horseback were evidently in direction of the whole affair.
I had lost sight of Suliman and the slave Osman, but I heard after-
wards that they, too, were considerably knocked about. I received a
rather nasty blow on the nape of the neck and another with some
weapon on my cheek bone, but neither very serious, and, not being
really hurt, I managed to keep my temper. The sheykhs made no effort
to protect me in any way; but, when they had got my pistol, my as-
sailants left me more or less alone, as there was a general rush to pillage
the baggage. Fortunately the leather bags with spring locks were a
puzzle to them, and they could not tear them open. But I had no
leisure to attend to this, and my captors marched me off towards the
town, every now and then having a drag at my cloak or my hesam
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268 / Am Brought Prisoner into Siwah [1897
(girdle); 'el dirahem, el diraheml' ('the drachmas, the money!')
they shouted ; ' you have a thousand ? you have two thousand? '
" At last a man, with a better face than most, came up to me, and I
made myself his dahil (according to the Arab formula, ' ana dahilak/
by seizing his cloak, an act of surrender), and he took me to join a
second body which had been waiting behind the first, and some of these
threw their cloaks over my head to protect me from further blows. It
was a rabble rout as ever was seen, and they marched me to the town,
where the women were all shrilling their triumph (tUu^lu-lu-lu) from
every housetop. I did not know in the least what it was about or what
they intended, but they seemed all very angry, and at times I thought
they meant to kill me. But, strangely enough, I was not at all fright-
ened, and felt interested in it all almost as a spectator." [The truth
is it was a very lovely morning, the air sparkling and clear, and the
whole thing, with its almost mediaeval and quite barbaric costuming and
Staging, was more like a pageant than a reality, so that it seemed diffi-
cult to realize that it was quite in earnest ; nor had I time to think much
or consider what it meant.]
" Arrived inside the town, I was marched to an open space where
there were two erections not unlike gallows, and for a moment I
thought that I was perhaps to be hanged. All I could imagine in ex-
planation of the affair was that some revolution had broken out in
which I was accidentally involved. But we did not stop at the gallows,
and presently I was bidden inside a house and up a stair which led to a
nice open room with mastabahs (seats) and a pleasant outlook to the
north. This proved to be the mejliss (council chamber) of the Sheykhs
of the Gharbieh (western town), and there we sat down. I took the
best place, and called for water, which was brought ; and a great talk
began among the Sheykhs, who were now by way of protecting me.
Having drunk and recovered my breath, I asked them the reason of all
their wrath, and of the attack made on me, but could get no intelligible
answer except that the Maown was coming. I explained that I was a
person well known at Cairo and a friend of Effendina's (the Khe-
dive's). But they said they knew nothing of Effendina — they had a
government of their own, and that I should go to the diwan (govern-
ment house). Soon after the Maown arrived. He had made me the
kindly offer of his servi^ last night, and I now whispered to him that
I was an Englishman. iPhis made him still more courteous, and I think,
poor man, he did all he could to set things right, with considerable tact,
too. And, as things went on better, I whispered the same intelligence
also to one of the sheykhs who sat next me, and with the same good
effect. There was now a great hurry to restore the plunder, and most
of the things taken were by degrees brought in, the chief losses being
two of my three guns, and my good Persian sword (the sword Moham-
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med Ibn Aruk of Tadmor had given me), also my little store of gold
— £29 had been abstracted from my small red bag, which must have
been done by the sheykhs themselves, for the silver had been left, and
certainly the common plunderers would have left nothing. And so,
little by little, matters cleared. The Maown brought water, and him-
self washed my cheeks from the blood, and a katib (scribe) having ar-
rived, I dictated a statement of the case, though I don't think it was
signed by any one.
" After this, my servants one by one appeared all with tales of the
losses, and Suliman and Osman of their bruises — and we were escorted
by the Maown to the diwan, which is the general Government House of
Siwah. Here we now are, in not uncomfortable quarters upstairs, with
several mud-built rooms and a nice roof top. The camels are below
in a great yard ; and after all the trouble nothing serious has really hap-
pened. Only it is clear our onward journey is stopped. Our money
and our arms are gone, and there is a general demoralization among the
servants. Salem is thoroughly frightened and has given warning, and
the others all declare for an immediate return by Alexandria. So here
my expedition ends. The timid Beseys, it turns out, ran away to his
friend Mohammed Said at the first news of the approaching army, and
came late, on the Maown's summons, to the mejliss, where the Sheykhs
set upon him, excusing themselves for the attack by la3dng it on Beseys'
assurance to them that I was this that and the other ; and, indeed, I
think it has been mainly his fault. It was quite unnecessary for him
to talk about my going to Benghazi to anybody but Mohammed Said ;
and I am not sure Jie had not talked also about the road to Jerabub.
Still we must be thankful for small mercies, and it has all been in the
way of the adventure I was seeking. None of us is hurt, and for the
small losses I shall make the Eg3rptian Government responsible. They
should either give up holding Siwah or keep order here. As it is, the
Maown, poor man, is powerless. He told me his sorrows to-night He
has been twelve years here, on £7 a month, and has but six men under
him for the preservation of the peace, four of whom are disabled by
fever, and he himself suflfers from it. His second in command is dying
of consumption, and spits blood continually. His superior, the Mamur,
at £25 a month, has just been recalled, and I think he cannot read or
write. His bashkatib, chief secretary, is down with fever, and the
second, too, is sick. ^
" 1st March, — Things look pleasanter this morning. It is arranged
that we are to leave to-morrow with a messenger the Maown is sending
to Alexandria with the news of our adventure. We shall take the
northern road by Akabah and the sea coast. Last night was a noisy
one, of chaunting and processions, as Ramadan is ending. [N.B. The
diwan overlooked the great square of the mosque, which was crowded
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270 Causes of the Attack [i897
all night with a mtiltitude of devotees, and a wild concourse of Oulad
Ali Bedouins who had come in to Siwah from the north and west to buy
dates and attend the coming festival. The Oulad Ali are all more or
less adherents of the Senussia, and what may truly be called ' fanatic-
ism,' was rampant among them. It was a curious and impressive sight,
and cannot have been very different from the condition of things at
Omdurman and el Obeyd in the time of the Mahdi. At midnight and
again at the hour of the morning prayer a gong was sounded, apparently
by the blows repeated singly of an iron hammer, with the effect of a
series of sharp reports like those of a rifle, sharp and penetrating, fol-
lowed by the call to prayer splendidly chaunted by the mueddhin, and
then a general chaunting maintained for an hour or more, wild and
menacing as anything to be heard in the world.] The best explanation
of the attack made on me is Ramadan. The Siwans are mad with it.
Beseys tells me the Akhwan took part in yesterday's affair. It is quite
likely. Others say it is on account of our having gone on arrival to
Mohammed Said, who is at the head of the opposite faction, that of the
Eastern town. But I think plunder had not a little to do with it, and
the recklessness which Ramadan brings. Certainly the whole of the
Gharbieh town was concerned in the attack. I regret it as upsetting my
plans for the Jebel Akhdar, but it cannot be helped. It may serve as a
useful instruction as to this western Islam of which I had hoped some-
thing. If the condition of Siwah is all the fruit the Senussia has to
show, the tree can be but little worth.
" 2nd March. — The day has passed in going to and fro on the part
of the Maown to arrange matters for our start to-morrow. They have
imposed two khabirs (guides) on us, one from each village, for whom
I am to pay £4 each. This will leave me with only fifteen reals and a
piastre, all counted. The Sheykh of the Gharbieh, who is chief guar-
antor in the transaction, is the same who led the attack on us yesterday.
There is little doubt that the prime movers in the affair were the Akh-
wan. Some say that Mohammed, the Siwahi brother who recited the
prayer with us at Zeytoun, followed us on his white donkey, and that
he was the cause of the night visit paid us, and the questions asked of
us as to our projected journey. The Sheykh of the Western town led
the ghasu, but the men who first attacked me were, I am sure, slaves
of the Akhwan. I remember among their cries when they struck me
with the gun, ' ya kelb, la te fut and Sidi el Mahdi/ Indeed it was all
done in the name of Sidi el Mahdi. Now old Beseys says he recognized
one of the Akhwan as leader, in the attack.
" Of the Sheykhs there were three prominent leaders, Othman Hab-
bun, the old man with the naked sword (this I believe to have been
Hassuna), and the young dark man with the prominent eyes, who after-
wards sat next me at the mejliss, Mohammed Kuli. AH these three
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were on horseback. I am certain, too, that the gold stolen from the
red bag was taken, not in the general plunder, but afterwards — this
uecause the bag, though not locked, was shut with a spring, and if the
plunderers had got it open they would not have left the silver or the
pistol, both of which were inside. I suspect it was Othman took it.
Beseys says that the arms are in his hands and in those of the Akhwan.
The name of the man who first protected me is Abu Bekr Mohammed
Daoud, and another was Mohammed Mansur, Hassan Mansur's
brother, on whom they now lay all the blame. Mohammed Kuli was
among the advanced riders. I* consider Abdallah Homeydeh among the
most responsible of the second division. The three commanders of the
advanced party are then — Othman Habbun, the worst, Hassuna, and
Mohammed Kuli. It was Mohammed Kuli, I think, who pointed the
pistol at my head. They lay all the blame on Hassuna now, who they
say is asi (in rebellion) against the Government, and has possession of
my sword and gtins.
" Othman has been to see me and has brought back the money, or
rather its equivalent of ten sovereigns and twenty-five bintos. The
Sheykhs of the Gharbieh have all been with me, talking, and are now
polite enough and anxious their quarrel with me should be settled ; and
I have used a little siasa with them, acquiescing in their view of Has-
suna's sole guilt. They have asked me to get him removed by the
Government as a mischief maker. It was Abdallah Homeydeh who
made the remark in the mejliss * We know nothing of Effendina. We
have a government of our own.'" [N.B. I am sorry not to have
noted more in my journal of these Sheykhs' conversation, for much of
it was interesting as connected with the affairs of the Senussia. I
found Othman Habbun by far the most able man among them, a strong,
capable rogue. The rest were very poor creatures, some of them of
the most degraded physical type I have ever come across, and appar-
ently without those sentiments of honour most Arabs pretend to even
if they are without them. The Siwahi are, however, no real Arabs, but
men of very mixed origin with much negro blood, and apparently some
northern blood too, for there were individuals with yellow faces, pale
eyes, and tow-coloured hair. They are probably descended from the
criminals formerly sent here in Roman and later times, for Siwah was
a convict settlement.]
" 3-30- — I hsyt had a last talk with Huseyn Effendi, the Maown, and
have learned several things from him. Othman Habbun is no other,
he tells me, than the Wakil of the Akhwan at Siwah. This explains the
whole affair, and it is on him and the Akhwan that the whole responsibil-
ity of the attack rests. He is now anxious not to compromise the
Senussia with the Government, and represents Hassuna as the danger-
ous man, making him scapegoat in his place. Hassuna is Sidi el Mahdi^s
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272 IV e Leave for the Nile [1897
strongest adherent in Siwah, an^l if the Government attempts to arrest
him, he will doubtless fly and take refuge with the Sidi, as he did once
before in the Khedive Tewfik's time. I am tired of waiting here, but
the delay has been fruitful in the knowledge I have acquired. It is an
experience not, I think, bought too dear.
" yd March. — Got away at last from Siwah, accompanied by the
Maown on his white donkey and our four chief adversaries on horse-
bask, Othman Habbun (Wakil Sidi el Mahdi), Mohammed Mansur
(Hassuna's brother), Mohammed Kuli, and Abdallah Homeydeh.
They were riding wretched underbred mares of which they professed
themselves proud. But Othman cast envious eyes on Yemama, who
was fresh with her rest and full of spirits.
'* I have promised the Maown to try and get him named Mamur. He
says that with twenty-five men and a small cannon he could manage the
town — and I think he could if Othman were removed. He is the only
dangerous one of the lot, as he is intelligent, unscrupulous, and bold.
The Senussia in these oasis towns is a mere madness and ought to be
suppressed. It is, all the same, picturesque and interesting. I have
slept the last two nights on the housetop, and the midnight call to prayer
is the most impressive thing I ever heard. The town guards call their
watchword, which is answered all over the town. Then the drum is
struck, in sound like the sharp crack of a rifle, i — 2, 3 — i — 2, 3 —
I — 2, 3. Then, after an interval, the mueddhin chaunts. Till mid-
night the whole town is silent — dead silent — there are no dogs at
Siwah except those brought in by the Bedouins. But afterwards there
are intervals of watch calling and prayers till daybreak.
" The four Sheykhs got off their horses at the outskirts of the oasis
gardens and were wishing us good-bye, when Mohammed Said ap-
peared in the distance. * I think he is not of your friends,' I said.
' We are all friends here,' they answered, laughing. * Fi aman Illah,'
said Othman. * Salaam aleykum,' I answered, and he, ' Aleykum es
salaam.' Mohammed Said then rode up. He talked of riding farther
with us, but I would not allow it. He proved useless to us at the
pinch, and he only compromises us now. The little Maown I parted
from with real regret. He has been very kind and very clever. I am
to deliver a letter he has written to the Mudirieh (Damanhur, of which
Siwah is an annex), and to send him my pistol and a donkey's bridle by
one of our guides when these return. Mohammed Said handed me a
list of those who had been concerned in the attack on me, and then he
too departed. When all were gone and we were once more in the open
desert we all breathed more freely, and have pushed quickly on and are
stopping now at the last hattieh (palm clump) of the oasis, some twenty-
five miles from Siwah.
"4th March. — A long march from 5.50 a.m. to 5.20 p.m. over hard
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hamad (gravel plain) at best pace — say thirty-five miles — and camped
at the first sheltered place on descending towards Garah. A hot march,
as the wind was behind us, followed by a bitter cold night.
"The two guides are Kheydr, an old man, tall and big-nosed, a
Senusite — he was one of those who rode against us on the 28th at
what I call the battle of Jupiter Ammon, for the ruins were within half
a mile of the fight. The other, a great strong blackguard of the op-
posite faction. They are both amiable now, and made me a present of
Siwah bread and date cake, very good, in a pretty basket. The old man
I like. He said to-day, * I have been inquiring about you from your
servants, and I find we made a great mistake about you. It will ruin
Siwah.'
" $th March. — There are three factions at Siwah : i. The Senussia,
comprising 950 out of the 1000 male inhabitants. 2. The followers of
one Abd es Salaam of Tuggurt, and 3. The followers of Mohammed
Dhaffir el Medani of Constantinople. Of this last Mohammed Said is
a member, and so is our guide Khalaf. Mohammed Dhaffir it was
that made the mischief at Yildiz against Sidi d Mahdi, and caused the
Sultan to cut his subsidy. It is therefore pretty plain that our arriving
with letters to Mohanumed Said was a first cause of suspicion. They
seem to have jumped at once to the conclusion that I was a spy, from
Mohammed Dhaffir or another, with plans against their chief." [N.B.
This Mohammed Dhaffir el M^ni is doubtless the same Sheykh Zaffir
who corresponded with Arabi on behalf of the Sultan in 1882. See
my " Secret History."]
" This morning we descended to Garah, a pretty little oasis, with a
quaint village perched on a mushroom rock, inhabited by negroes.
There are two springs and a well, the western spring called Ain Mak-
hluf, the eastern Ain Paris. Makhluf has a deep hole in the middle
of the spring like that at Wells. We found the inhabitants of Garah
en fete, for to-day is the Id (festival) and their Sheykh, an old negro,
came out to greet us and ask us to alight, but I would not stop, and we
have come on to the far end of the oasis, and are camped under some
wild palms. Some fifteen miles to-day. According to the barometer
we are here 250 feet below the sea level. It was 400 above yesterday on
the high plateau.
" In all this time of trial I have been reading Doughty — certainly the
best prose written in the last two centuries. He is of excellent counsel
for such straits as we have been in ; and I think it was in great measure
due to his influence that I took the passive line I did the day of the
attack. Any other would have cost me my life.
" 6th March, — Thirteen hours' march without a halt, perhaps forty
miles. Our course was north-east by east, to the khusm of Abdel
Nebbi. Thence there are two roads which part conq>any to join again
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2/4 A Bedouin Shows Us Water [1897
at Lebbakh. We chose the northern way. We are camped at the first
palms of a new oasis.
" 7th March, — All day till three skirting a great sebkha with cliff
to our left, and camped at a spring. Found a dead pratincole and saw
two falcons. Barometer shows 165 below sea level. The name of our
camp, Gatara. Water pretty good, an <^n spring with a run of water
from under palms. Chats with white heads and tails, as at Siwah. A
yellow wagtail with black head. Twenty-five miles.
" 8th March. — Rounded the point of Gatara and on to El Haj, six
hours. El Haj, an open spring in a sandy ravine, water salt. At 2.50
crossed a bay of the sebkha, and camped at a hattieh — perhaps twenty-
eight miles. Saw a gazelle on the sebkha, and flushed a quail. We are
camped lyi, miles east of the pyramidal peak of El Tartur. Good
guttdf pasture for the camels.
" gth March, — Took water from an open pit under Abu Tartur. It
might be easily passed unnoticed, being marked only by some burnt
palms. A great bird of prey, brown, grey, and black (?), and some
pippits. All day coasting the sebkha, with lines of hill still in front.
Eleven hours' march, thirty miles. We have now travelled, according
to my calculation, 198 miles from Siwah in seven days.
" io*A March. — To Lebbakh well, eleven hours, say thirty miles,
good nossi and sgaa pasture. The well is about three-quarters of a
mile south of the headland, the last of the range eastwards. It is
marked by a low tel. I am tired, and Yemama is tired. The sebkha
ends here.
" Later. I was premature about the well. After three hours' absence
Kheydr and Eid have returned, having failed to find it. So we are
without water. I have given what remained in my girbeh to the gen-
eral stock. Yemama had a jerdel, and there is now absolutely no drop
in camp, except one quart bottle I keep always in reserve. Kheydr
promises water to-morrow at noon at Maghara, ' sweet as the Nile.'
We are now, I calculate, 160 miles from the Nile valley.
"nth March. — A long forced march of thirty miles. I did not ride
Yemama, as she is suffering from thirst, and is looking thin and tucked
up. They found the well this morning, but it was salt, and the mare
would not drink. To-day we passed through herds of wandering
camels. There is pasture, erta, nossi, adr. At half-past two crossed
a party of Oulad Ali, who told us we were going wrong, and took us
to Maghara water — most fortunate. Maghara is a small oasis three
miles south-west of the first step of the hill.
" 12th March. — The Bedouin who showed us the water, Abu Bekr,
lives in the neighbourhood. Every ten days he visits Maghara, and
fetches ten girbehs of water on donkeys for his household, a bright,
good Bedouin, who was really unwilling to take the present I offered
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him. I said, ' For the water/ He answered, * It was not worth it'
(If we had not chanced to meet him it would have fared ill with us.)
From this point I took command, as Kheydr had no clear idea of the
direction. Abu Bekr had told us, * go towards that star,' pointing to
one rising in the east. I made my course a point north of west, and
made a nine hours' march, perhaps twenty-three miles, letting the
camels feed, and am camped in a good wady, with erta and eshub,
Yemama eats the erta, and several kinds of eshub, besides the nossi.
We have our six girhehs full, to last us till the Nile or the Wady Natron.
" 13th March, — Another nine hours' march due east. I insisted
upon this, as they wanted, all of them but Suliman, to go south-east,
which I knew must be wrong. So across country we went, taking care-
ful bearings at every height to keep our line true. It was all open
ground. Some camel herders we passed told us the Wady (Natron)
was in front of us, thus confirming my judgment. At 2.45 we camped
in a bit of pasture, whence we disturbed gazelles. These are now once
more of the smaller Eastern kind. (They are lai^er in the west).
Came on a vulture on a dead camel. Saw cranes passing northwards
overhead. Three days more should see us now at home. Twenty-
seven miles' march.
"14/A March — Held doggedly on my course due east, passing much
petrified wood. There is a general discontent at my persisting in my
own direction over hill and dale, all good going on gravel. At noon
we crossed a well-marked caravan road, bearing north-east, but I held
on by compass, and presently we got glimpses of a yellow wady about
three miles off I knew must be Natron, and at four found ourselves
within two miles of the westernmost convent straight in front of us
(a good bit of navigation). Here we are camped. Some thirty miles
to-day.
" 15^ March, — This morning our party broke up, Beseys and Min-
shawi making a line for their home in the Fayoum, our two khabirs also
leaving us to visit friends in the Rif, and we down the Natron Valley,
passing four convents on our way to Sheykh Ahmed and Fum el Bahr.
We camped in the plain between Natron and the Rif. Twenty-eight
miles.
" i6th March. — This morning we saw a strange sight. The moon
was setting, and we saw three moons, and the sun was rising, and we
saw two suns. At noon we reached the Nile Valley and rested awhile,
feasting our eyes on the greenness and the water near Sheykh Ahmed.
Then on, and camped at Fum el Bahr. Thirty miles.
" 17^/i March. — Reached Sheykh Obeyd on St. Patrick's day, at
1 1. 15, a weary crew, having travelled 413 miles in fourteen and a half
days, the fortieth day from our leaving it. El Hamdul Illah !
" 24th March. — Sheykh Obeyd. I returned from my Siwah journey
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276 We Reach Sheykh Obeyd Once More [1897
on the 17th at a quarter past eleven, meeting Anne accidentally on her
way through the palm grove from the station. I could hardly speak
for tears of joy. I had been away the forty days, during which she
was to expect no news of me, and this was die forty-first, and during
the whole of that time I had not spoken a word of any language but
Arabic, till I had come even to think in Arabic* and I was weak and
worn out, and famished in mind and body. Our last run from Siwah,
413 miles, had been accomplished in fourteen days and a half.
" Since then I have been resting, except that on the 20th I went
into Cairo and lunched with Gorst, and at his suggestion drew up a
memorandum in writing for him of the circumstances of my journey.
There have been two political events during my absence, the war in
Crete and Rodd's mission to Abyssinia. I hardly know what to say
yet on either case. Personally I have come back from my journey with
my mind cleared on one point important to my life. It is as to religion.
My experience of the Senussia at Siwah has convinced me that there is
no hope anywhere to be found in Islam. I had made myself a ro-
mance about these reformers, but I see that it has no substantial basis,
and I shall never go farther now than I am in the Mohammedan direc-
tion. The less rdUgion in the world, perhaps, after all, the better.'^
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CHAPTER XIII
OMDURMAN AND FASHODA
From this point my more violent activities in life may be said to
have ended. My health had suffered seriously from the extreme hard-
ships of my journeys, hardships which hitherto I had borne with easily,
but which now at my age of fifty-six had taken their revenge on me.
The next two years were for this reason an unhappy period of my
life, and this, though I do not often make mention in it of my suffer-
ings, is reflected in my diary.
We left Sheykh Obeyd on the 19th April. Four days before, on
15th April, I had gone to wish the Khedive good-bye. He received
me pleasantly, as always, with pretty speeches about my friendship for
him, and the good report of me he heard from everyone. He asked
about my journey to Siwah and the attack made on me. I made
rather light of it with him as a ghasu (an accident of travel), but he
said he had heard it was the doing of the Senussia. About the state
of affairs between Greece and Turkey he said things could not be
going worse. The Sultan was ruining the Empire, the end could not
be far distant. "But where can we look," he asked, "for another
chief? In Arabia there is only your friend Ibn Rashid, and he is
little more than a BedouiiL" With Sheykh Mohammed Abdu too I
had a farewell talk.
" 17th April, — Abdu brought me news that war was declared be-
tween Greece and Turkey. We agreed that it was better things had
come to actual war. Personally I think that it would be no loss for the
Ottoman Empire if the Greeks should be able to hold their own in
Macedonia, though I do not expect it, for a defeat of the Turkish army
would bring about a revolution at Constantinople, and even a European
war would do no harm. 'When thieves fall out, honest men come
by their own.' The Ottoman Empire cannot be made to last in
Europe, and as soon as the remnant of the provinces there are lost the
better it will be. I expect, however, to see the Turks advance on
Athens, when the Powers would doubtless intervene to stop the fight-
ing, which they could do by pressure at Constantinople. Then there
may be a second chance for the establishment of a better order of
things on the Bosphorous, for it would be too great a scandal to allow
the Sultan and his palace clique to go on for another twenty years on
277
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a new lease of absolute power; possibly the victorious general might
become the leader of a constitutional change in Turkey, but we sluill
see."
" 1st May. — Back in England, where we arrived at the end of the
month. The Greeks have been smashed badly by Edhem Pasha in
Thessaly ; they seem to have run away rather than fought, which would
be more creditable to them if they had not been the aggressors in the
quarrel. I am sorry, on the whole, as the Turkish victory is strength-
ening the Sultan's hand at Constantinople, and will put back the clock
of reform. There is little chance, I fear, of Edhem's coming forward
as a revolutionist, but I am nearly dead to politics as, indeed, to all
else but the horses and the sunshine.
"8th May, — The Greeks are again beaten and in retreat, and the
Turkish army will now advance on Athens and dictate its terms of
peace. The Sultan is entirely rehabilitated in public opinion, for the
world adores military success, and he will probably now go on in
triumph till he dies.
" 18/A May, — Newbuildings. On the 13th George Wyndham came
to spend the day with me and stopped the night. He was full of his
journey to South Africa and of his South African Commission, where
he has played the part of advocate for Rhodes and his gang, and is
still playing it. With this I am of course in little sympathy, but
George and I know how to differ without quarrelling. He told me
much of the inner working of the great intrigue and promised more
some day. We also talked about the Henley edition of my poems, and
about his own * New Review.'
r" " ZTd June, — George was here yesterday. The South African Com-
: mittee is virtually, not virtuously, over, and no one in his senses can
\ doubt that Chamberlain was privy to the raid, not indeed at the last .-
^^ moment but in its initial stages. I asked George whether it was not /
so. ' Chamberlain has denied it,' he answered diplomatically.
" 15/A June. — Drove to Bramber and dined with Button in his
newly purchased old house there, St. Mary's, which he has furnished
with bric-a-brac, and had the little meadow behind it laid out in minia-
ture avenues. We talked of old political times. He tells me that at
the time Wolseley started for Egypt in 1882, the Rothschilds had the
whole of their working capital in Egyptian securities, and were in such
a fright about the Domains lest Arabi should flood the country and
destroy the property pledged to them, that they got Wolseley to hurry
on the campaign at all costs to prevent his cutting the canals. But-
ton had this from Wolseley himself at the time, and it agrees with
what he (Button) told me then.
" 17th June. — Hyndman came to breakfast with me in Mount Street,
and we discussed the state of Europe, Africa and Asia. He knows
)
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a great deal and told me many curious things, among others the genesis
of the English connection with the Suez csmal. He assures me that
it was not Beaconsfield's idea, but Greenwood's, who was at that time
Editor of the * Pall Mall Gazette/ and on whose staff Hyndman was.
Greenwood conceived the plan of the Government buying the shares, and
after consulting with his colleagues on the paper went to Lord Derby to
suggest it. Derby approved and sent him on to Beaconsiield, who at
first was much disinclined, but eventually agreed, giving the job to
the Rothschilds, a quite unnecessary waste of conunission as the
shares could have been bought with Treasury Bonds in the ordinary
way. He told me much, too, of his dealings with Lord Salisbury at
election times, and about French and German socialism. He stayed
two hours witfi me.
''20th June {Jubilee Sunday). — The streets decked out with scaf-
folding and red cloth. London architecture lends itself to these dis-
guisements, as there is nothing to lose by being hidden.
'*2ist June, — Alfred Austin's ' Jubilee Ode' is published in the
' Times,' and as good as a thing of the kind can be, and I have written
to tell him so. When he was first made Laureate I did not write, be-
cause I really could not have said anything about his poetry that would
have pleased him, but to-day I am able to do so with a good conscience.
We are old acquaintances of something like forty years' standing, and
personally I am pleased at his success.
"22nd June. — The Queen's Jubilee Day — the evening and night
of which I spent on Chanclebury Down, camped among the thorn
bushes near the top of the Ridge, a beautiful but rather hazy evening,
quite warm, no moon, little parties of country people out on foot,
others in vans, but not enough of them to injure the solitude. At half-
past nine rockets began to be fired away at Shoreham, and a light ap-
peared on Leith Hill, then illuminations at Shoreham and Brighton,
and precisely at ten bonfires were lit up. I counted ninety-seven of
them, and there were probably more, for the clump hid part of the
horizon. It was an inspiriting sight, and we tried to make out our
own bonfire at Newbuildings, which lies in a straight line between
Chanclebury and Leith Hill.
"26th June. — The day of the Jubilee Review at Portsmouth. A
Jingo apotheosis which contrasts strangely with my recollection of
Portsmouth seventeen years ago, when our military and naval glory
was at so low an ebb that even I felt humiliated.
"27/A June (Sunday). — I am at Swinford on a visit to Austin.
Austin is naive about his position and dignity as Poet Laureate. He
assured me that he had made it a condition in accepting the post that
he was not to write Odes to order. I asked him how he had written
his Jubilee performance, suggesting that it must have been troublesome
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28o Alfred Ai4stin's Idea of Heaven [1897
to manage. On the contrary, he told me, he had done it without more
effort than just to fix his mind determinedly and reverently on Her
Majesty, waiting till the inspiration came, ' and (after a pause) it
came/ He showed me a letter from the Queen's private secretary,
thanking him for the verses, and saying that Her Majesty thought
them very pretty, but when he went to present them at Windsor, she did
not ask him to recite them. A letter from Lord Salisbury was in
the same sense; however, Austin is so loyal that he even apologized
for depreciating Victorian a: ":hitecture. In the afternoon we all sat
talking on the lawn, .Lady Paget and Lady Windsor being of the
party, and it was suggested that each of us should give his idea of
Heaven. Mine was to be laid out to sleep in a garden, with running
water near, and so to sleep for a hundred thousand years, then to be
woke by a bird singing, and to call out to the person one loved best,
' Are you there? ' and for her to answer, ' Yes, are you? ' and so turn
round and go to sleep again for another hundred thousand years.
Austin's idea was to sit also in a garden, and while he sat to receive
constant telegrams announcing alternately a British victory by sea,
and a British victory by land. He talked to us a good deal about Irv-
ing, and told us that Irving had begun life as a boy of all work in
the family of a solicitor in Cornwall, where his father and mother
were butler and cook. The solicitor put the boy into his law office as
a junior clerk, but dismissed him because he paid no attention to busi-
ness, only to play-acting in office hours.
" 6th July, — A letter from Joseph Potocki telling the ugly news of
the burning of the Countess Branicka's stud and stables ; one hundred
and thirty horses perished, including two colts they bought from us
last year. It is said to be the vengeance of an English groom dismissed
, for theft. Her daughter Sophie is engaged to marry Prince Strozzi.
" I2th July, — My new room at Newbuildings which I call the * Jubi-
lee Room ' is finished, and looks already part of the old house. It was
built without plan, elevation, or sketch of any kind, Thorpe and I
working it out together as we went on." [The Jubilee Room was
more than a room, being a separate building with two stories. Thorpe,
a plain stone and bricklayer born and bred in the parish, a painstaking,
conscientious man working slowly, but with a complete knowlec^e of
his trade and its older traditions. The panelling inside was done by
my estate carpenter, Dench.]
^.- " iSth July. — The South African committee has published a report,
/ certainly the most scandalous ever jobbed. It absolves Chamberlain
/ in these words : ' Neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies nor
, any of the officials of the Colonial office received any information
v which made or should have made them or any of them aware of the plot
during its development.' It may be noticed that this pronouncement
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carefully avoids what undoubtedly happened, namely that Chamber-
lain's attitude to Rhodes and Beit was practically this : ' Manage the
matter your own way, but remember I am to know nothing about it/
Rhodes is condemned publicly in the report, but will be let off all
punishment. He will not even be struck off the list of the Queen's
Privy Councillors. I hear that the Queen personally assured the Em-
peror William when the raid happened that none of her Ministers
were cognisant of the affair, and this assurance given by the Queen
accounts for the strange attitude of Sir William Harcourt and other
Radicals on the Committee who have signed the report. The whole of
our public life is rotten, and will remain so till we have received a
serious defeat in war. The Queen is at the bottom of half the Imper-
ialistic mischief we do abroad. She is pleased at the title of Empress,
and likes to enlarge her borders. I should not be at all surprised if
she was really in the Jameson affair with her Ministers, indeed this
is the best explanation of the extraordinary manoeuvres of the Gov-
ernment, and the connivance of the official opposition.
"24/A July. — Our annual Arab stud sale at Crabbet. Brilliant
weather; an immense gathering; 320 persons sat down to lunch; a
good many of these, foreigners and colonials; a successful but tiring
day.
" 27th July, — To London and lunched with George, whom I found
triumphant over the issue of the debate on South Africa last night.
He considers the triumph of the Rhodes group, which is his own
triumph, due to superior ability in the Pariiamentary management, the
skill with which they split the Liberal opposition, the capture of old
Harcourt, the forcing of Chamberlain's hand into open support of
Rhodes and the bamboozling of the stupid M.P.'s. With regard to
Chamberlain, George admires him as the grandest specimen of the
courageous, unscrupulous schemer our politics have ever seen. He
says that Chamberlain was not an accomplice of the actual armed
raid made by Jameson — though he certainly was in the political in-
trigue — and he (Chamberlain) would not deny it — against the in-
dependence of the Transvaal. He described Chamberlain's speech and
the menace he (Chamberlain) threw out to Dilke if any one should
dare propose the cancelling of Rhodes' position in the Privy Council.
Chamberlain did not name Dilke, but his eye, while speaking, travelled
along the benches of tfie Opposition, so that it was clear to all what
his meaning was. It was a base threat, and he would certainly have
followed it up if the Radicals had dared accept his challenge. George
triumphs in all this, but to me it is pitiful to see a young man like him,
the heir of all the ages, connecting himself with such a scoundrel crew.
The whole Cabinet is now the duumvirate of Balfour and Chamber-
lain, but I tftld George he would find one day that Arthur would be
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282 The Herberts at Wilt on [1897
the victim of some base trick in order that the other might reign alone."
In August I made a driving tour through the West of England and
South Wales. The day before starting I received a letter from Edward
Malet breaking the silence of fifteen years. It was very cordial and
expressed regret for our troubled relations in the past I have an-
swered it in a way which I hope may bring about a renewal of our
friendship. The occasion of his letter was the discovery among his
mother's papers of a number of MS. poems he thought were mine.
In reality they were Lothian's as I can see by the handwriting, and
also by internal evidence — poems of dates between 1861 and 1864,
the time Schomberg and I were most together and most with Lady
Malet. I need not give a full account of this journey. We passed
through Petworth and Rogate, where I found Hugh Wyndham, just
retired from diplomatic work after his forty years* career. Then by
Bishop's Waltham to Salisbury and Stockton, stopping for a couple of
hours at Wilton on my way. This time I found Sidney, now Lord
Pembroke, at home with his family of boys at cricket, much as
I found the former generation thirty years ago. " Wilton is the para-
dise of England with its three rivers, eternally beautiful and un-
changed while its owners change and perish. One passes by and finds
Herberts living there, happily idling their lives away, as one finds
swallows year after year nesting in a village, and one imagines them
to be the same Herberts, as one imagines the others to be the same
swallows. At Warminster next day I stopped to bait and dined at
the ordinary at the Anchor Inn, it being market day among the farmers
with whom I talked agriculture and the price of mutton. But when
they found I .was not there to buy lambs they lost interest in me.
I found to my surprise that of the ten farmers dining with me five
drank water only, the rest cider. Our meat was roast ducks carved
by a chairman at the head of the table, and at one moment I was half
afraid they were going to make speeches." I spent my Sunday, 8th
August, at Mells, where I found a company of " Souls," then on to
Bristol where I put up for the night at an odd place of entertainment
called " The Bath," kept by a Dr. Shaw and his wife, a pretty woman,
who had been long in India, and who was the attraction evidently of
the guests, mostly retired Anglo-Indians, patients as well as guests,
as indicated by the menu cards, which were marked with medicines as
well as wines. Bristol is the refuge of such broken-down officials,
who live at its cheap lodging-houses. The next day, crossing the Severn
Channel by the tunnel to Cardiff and St. Pagan's, where I spent the
inside of a week delightfully with the Windsors in their romantic
castle, which is such a perfect thing, an old Carolan house set in
the enceinte of an older castle wall, spoilt by nothing modem, the
object of my pilgrimage, and back, still driving through the romantic
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country of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Caer-
philly, Caerleon, Chepstow, and the Forest of Dean, where I camped
close to what is called the Devil's Chapel, and thence by Berkeley Castle,
Easton Grey, Broad Hinton, and Savemake, Hurstboume, Minley, and
so home. It had been a journey of 385 miles, made in nineteen days
with my four Arab mares, not one of which had tired or been off her
feed for a single day, and trotted in gamely, eager to be at home. The
journey had done me good. My journal of this tour is extremely in-
teresting, but once more it is impossible to give it a place here, as it
would lead me too far along the pleasant byways of social life and
away from the prescribed high road of public things.
" 4th Sept. — For the last three weeks there have been high doings in
India on the Afghan frontier, and to-day expeditions on a large scale
are announced. This is closely connected with our absurd policy at
Constantinople. The position to-day with Russia protecting the Cali-
phate at Constantinople, France in alliance with Russia and Germany
also in the coalition against us, justifies all I wrote and did in Eg3rpt
sixteen years ago. Dined at my club and had some talk with Nicholas
O'Conor who, heaven help us! is now Her Majesty's ambassador to
the Emperor of all the Russias.
" 25th Sept. — To Saighton, where I find a house full of friends and
acquaintance, Dick Grosvenor, Edward Clifford, Gatty, Henry Milner
and Lady Clifden, etc., with nothing for a vegetarian to eat [Lady
Windsor had persuaded me to become a vegetarian], and I dined off
two mushrooms and a raisin ; nevertheless a pleasant evening, George
laying down the law about Shakespeare, Ronsard, Brantome, and a
number more.
** 2jth Sept. — At Saighton. Played lawn tennis with George.
Spent the evening with him, arguing with some heat the eternal ques-
tion of the right of savage nations to existence. George, who repre-
sents the general sense of modern Imperial England, denies them
any such right at all. I am sick of their argtunents from Darwin and
the survival of the fittest.
" 2gth Sept. — Back to London and wrote going up in the train a
piece of verse for Gatty's translations, the h)rmn beginning :
If this dark valley of distress and tears
So green appears.
" ist Oct. — Shooting at Newbuildings with Charles Wyndham,
Scrope, and Evershed. Scrope is a nice young Yorkshireman, very
understanding about horses, but in poor health. He gave us a naive
account bf the Jameson raid as narrated to him by his brother, who
took part in it. It seems to have been a r^^lar drunken frolic.
Jameson had up I forget how many wagon-loads of drink the week
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284 The Jameson Raid Described [1897
before he started, including, I remember, thirty-six cases of champagne
which he distributed to his men, with leave to get drunk for three
days. There were among the men a number of loafers brought up
from Cape Town, some of them waiters from the restaurants, who had
never been on horseback before, and the whole force was more or
less drunk when it started. Jameson had told off three men to cut the
telegraph wires, but they were in such a condition that they mistook
a barbed wire fence for the telegraph and cut off a hundred yards of
it and carefully buried it instead of the other. When they got near
Johannesburg, Jameson could not find the way and picked up Boers
to show it them, who of course led them wrong./ Scrope's brother and
others knew the road but were not listened to. As to drunkenness, I
can well believe the story, for I remember how, on a journey in South
America in 1868, some English men of the party riding with me took
for all provision on the road, a gigantic demi-john of spirits, which
they strapped to the back of a horse and drove in front of them."
I left England in October once more for Egypt, still in bad health,
indeed in worse, for 1 had foolishly allowed myself to be persuaded
into becoming a vegetarian as well as the teetotaler I had been for
fifteen years, and the life at Sheykh Obeyd, delightful to those in
health, was too primitive to be suited to an invalid. On board the
ship that took us to Alexandria I found Walter Harris, the " Times "
correspondent in Morocco, who told me a good deal about his life
at Tangiers where he has a garden four miles from the town. He
talked also about the war in Thessaly where his brother was killed
last summer while helping the Greeks. The Greeks had abandoned
the brother when wounded, after robbing him of everything. They
had behaved abominably during the war. The Crown Prince of Greece
himself told Harris that he had seen the Evzoni throw paraffin on the
Turkish wounded and set them on fire.
I found all well at Sheykh Obeyd, except that the desert round us
was beginning to be cultivated and enclosed. The day will come when
we shall be caught in a network of gardens and country houses, though
so far no great harm has been done. People argue with me and say,
" But your property must be increasing in value," as if that was any
consolation for losing the solitude. Foxes are still plentiful in the
garden and I have twice seen a very large wolf, old and grey, who,
they tell me, has been here all the summer, frightening the boys who
cut the grass for the. horses. Salem says the wolf pursued him one
evening and tore his shirt and Suliman that he had taken two of his
lambs from his tent outside our wall. He comes and howls under our
window after nightfall. There are certainly two sorts of wolves here
besides jackals, unless, indeed, the intermediate size is a cross between
wolf and jackal. Our present guest is of the big desert kind.
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" 2yd Nov. — I have been reading Froissart's ' Chronicles/ He must
have lived a happy life, if what his biographers tell of him is true. The
age of chivalry, brutal as it was in its fighting aspect, seems to have
been sweetened by a good deal of romance, but to this Froissart hardly
alludes, and, tells only of battles and sieges, which were most of them
ignoble proceedings. Edward IIFs idea of war seems to have been
to raid the French towns everywhere, except just where the French
army was. Both Cressy and Poitiers were fought by the English
because they could not get away from the pursuing French, and the
victory in both cases was won by the skill of the English archers on
the one side and foolish generalship on the other. As a rule, it was
only the unarmed fighters on foot that were killed, the knights and
squires surrendered to ransom as soon as they were knocked off their
horses. This was all their chivalry of war.
" 26ih Nov. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu came to see me, and told
me the political and court gossip. The latest is about a trial in which
a young man is being prosecuted for insulting and libelling the Khedive
in verse. The true movers in the matter, Abdu assures me are Mo-
harram Pasha Shahin and Sheykh el Bekri in conjunction with Sheykh
Abul Huda at Constantinople, and it was done to please the Sultan.
Cromer, however, has mixed himself up in it, and in order to obtain
a verdict, or rather to screen some persons implicated who are favour-
able to English policy, has had the Egyptian Procureur of the native
courts replaced by Corbet, an Englishman. The Khedive is still on
bad terms with the Sultan, and the poem was written to please his
Majesty, but by an unfortunate mistake in the printing, one of the in-
sulting epithets applied to the Khedive is * Turk,' so that it has given
almost equal offence at Yildiz.
'' In India, the Af ridis I am glad to see are still gallantly maintain-
ing themselves against General Lockhart, and our troops are getting
nicely ' ptinished ' in their turn. It is clear from their accounts that
but for the superior fighting qualities of the Sikhs and Ghurkas the
white regiments could not be got to continue the campaign. Lockhart
has had to encourage them publicly not to be * downhearted.' There is
talk in England of conscription for the army, and our people will soon
begin to understand that they can't have the amusement of empire
without paying the price. The British Empire is a structure that
might crumble at any moment, the sooner the better, say I.
" 2gth Nov, — We have a guest with us, Nasr el Mizrab, nephew of
that Mijuel el Mizrab, who was Lady Ellenborough's last husband.
He is a well-spoken man and has travelled more than once with
Prankish explorers in the Syrian desert, Russians and Germans, buying
horses for them of his Anazeh kindred.
"gth Dec. — Young John Evelyn has come to stay with us. His
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father sent him to me on his way up the Nile, saying that he wished
him ' to learn Arabic, to keep a diary, to acquire habits of observation
and self-reliance and not to imbibe Jingo principles, also to marry
early/ I find the young man excellently disposed to all these things
except the last.
" 2ist Dec, — I am starting on Christmas Eve for Jebel Attaka near
Suez, as I think I am well enough now for desert travelling. Eid,
SuHman's young Howe3rti cousin, who travelled with us last March
to Siwah, and was so good a desert man, is dead. He had joined in
a ghazu in the summer beyond Akabah, and, on his way home, being
parched with thirst, drank of a well whose property it is to kill the
drinker in fourteen days. He reached home alive, but died soon after.
"23rd Dec, — Had an audience with the Khedive and took Walter
Harris with me. The talk was principally about the Turco-Greek war,
as to which Harris gave us some curious details. The King of Greece
himself told him that the reason that he left Vasos in Crete was so as
to bring about a blockade of the Piraeus. * I should then,* the King
said, * have been able to tell my people that but for the intervention of
the Powers I would have marched with a hundred thousand Greeks
to Constantinople. As it turned out, we were not prevented by the
Powers and so had to make a war, for which none of us had bargained."
Abbas afterwards told us of his cousin Prince Aziz's attempt to go
to Nejd. The Prince had got as far as Sherm, a small port in the
Sinai Peninsula, intending to cross over from there to Moelhi, and
then on to visit Ibn Rashid, but the Khedive had stopped him by tele-
gram. He was afraid of being compromised in Constantinople by the
visit, and was also unwilling that so light-headed a member of the
Khedivial family should be the first to visit Nejd after the conquests of
old days. Aziz is now at Nakhl, where he is being detained by the
Egyptian governor of the fort.
" Lunched with Rennell Rodd, and called afterwards on Riaz Pasha
and on Gorst. Harris was to have started with me to-morrow on my
desert trip, but has been prevented."
The desert trip was a bit of exploration connected with a map I was
making of the country between Cairo and the Red Sea. I returned
from it on the last day of the year.
" 12th Jan, 1898. — News has come of the death of Mohammed Ibn
Rashid at Hail, * iit his bed,' they say after a seven days' "illness. If
truly in his bed, he may rank as one of the most uniformly successful
of Arabian monarchs. For five and twenty years he has reigned in
Nejd, warring every spring upon his neighbours and always victoriously.
He has not once been defeated in the field, and has reduced every tribe
in succession to his obedience. His only misfortune has been that
he has left no son, and his inheritance will probably be disputed between
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Abdul Hamid, son of Hamoud, his first cousin once removed, and
Hamoud Mattaab, his nephew. Both, they say, claim * the seat/ and
are appealing to Constantinople for support. This may bring the Turk
into Nejd, for the Sultan was never so powerful in the desert as now.
Still, it is a far cry to Hail.
'* The Soudan campaign is being pushed on, and British soldiers are
being sent up the Nile, on a pretext of defence against an attack by the
Khalifa. How anybody can be green enough to believe these official
tales I cannot understand. The true reason is the advance of the
French expedition [under Marchand] to the Upper Nile at Fashoda,
and so the desire to be beforehand with them at Khartoum. The send-
ing of British troops is not at all because they are needed, for our
English regiments are inferior in every way to the Eg3^tian ones
for such work, but to gratify the English Government, and especially
the Queen, who considers the glory of her reign tarnished by the death
of Gordon and who wants it avenged. If Egyptian troops alone re-
captured Khartoum it would be a reproach to the British army, which
was defeated in its attempts to relieve Gordon there. They like, too,
to be able to say that the British military Occupation is necessary to
Egypt for its frontier defence — only another false excuse in the
long list of false excuses for staying in Eg)rpt begun twenty years ago.
" 2ist January. — Gorst and his two sisters and Captain Fitzclarence
lunched with us. Gorst has given me a list of the people reported
to have been killed at Siwah on the 20th April of last year in a local
fight. It includes several of my friends there, including Hassuna, but
I feel sceptical about the whole story.
" 22nd January. — A visit from Cogordan, the French Minister here.
We talked about the Soudan expedition. He tells me Kitchener will
be in command of forty thousand troops including those recently taken
over from the Italians at Kassala, and the ten thousand English who
were in Egypt. Of the Marchand expedition he disclaimed its im-
portance, and laughted at the talk that a French flag will be found
flying at Khartoum.
"26th January, — Old Charles Villiers is dead, the father of the
House of Commons. I remember him at Frankfort as long ago as
the winter of 1860-61, dining at our Legation with the Malets. He
impressed me at the time as the most wonderful and delightful talker
I had listened to. He seemed to take an interest in me too, and drew
me out till I talked a deal of boyish nonsense. The recollection of his
wit and charm is strong with me still."
Here follows another six days' journey in the Eastern desert on
deluls, travelling fast and map-making as we went, as I was anxious
to complete my survey of the country north of the Kalala range. Ii
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288 Thoughts on the Empire [1898
was bitter cold on the upper plateaux, and the hard life nearly finished
me, and hastened my return to England.
" iSth February. — The papers report the Queen's speech on the
opening of Parliament. It contains, perhaps, more than the usual
number of insincerities. Politics in England are in a hopeless condi-
tion, and will remain so until the Empire begins to break up, when it
will be too late to say or do anything. I shall not be sorry if I live
to see it. The British Empire has done so much harm to so many
nations and peoples that it deserves to perish, and we English will be
better off as a Nation shorn of our dependencies than now. It will hurt
our pride, but injure no true interest.
" Prince Osman is dead. He was riding to the Pyramids on his
camel, and fell off suddenly ; they say apoplexy. He was the cleverest
and most amusing of the Khedivial family, if not the most reputable ;
a brother of Princess Nazli, and first cousin, once removed, of the
Khedive. He had been brought up at Paris, and was always a bit of
a boulevardier, very pleasant and good-natured, and with an extraor-
dinary knowledge of the events, political and social, of his time, a fat
Falstaff in appearance, but like the others of the Khedivial family,
with a certain bodily hardihood and endurance on camel back ; my old-
est friend among them, and I am sorry to lose him.
*' 25th February. — Anne and Judith lunched a few days ago with
Bill Gordon, who told them that the real reason for his uncle's re-
signing his post as private secretary to Lord Ripon in India was as fol-
lows. When Ripon was appointed to India it was resolved by the
Cabinet that he should break up the gang of permanent officials who
form the Simla ring, and it was on this understanding that Gordon
accepted the post. A special point to be attacked was the treatment of
Ayub Khan (the Emir of Afghanistan) as to which Government had
evidence showing our English officials to have acted unjustly and
tyrannically. Gordon had drawn up a special memoir on the subject
which was to be acted on immediately upon Ripon's landing at Bom-
bay, but Ripon was no sooner on shore than the officials got hold of
him and persuaded him to let the matter rest. Gordon, upon this,
threw up the appointment, for he saw his chief was too weak to carry
the policy through. A Viceroy of India needs to be a man of iron
to hold his own and Ripon was every good thing except that.
"There is talk of Cromer's going to the Foreign Office. What
the Tories want now is a strong man to carry out their policy of vio-
lence, and Cromer will suit them. I care little how things go, for the
time of reasoning is past. There will be no change till the Empire
breaks up and Cromer may as well sit on the Imperial safety valve
as another. I had a long talk to-day with Mohammed Abdu about
this and other matters.
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" In Paris Zola has been condemned to a year's imprisonment for
bringing forward the Dreyfus case. This is an event of great sig-
nificance, for it means that in France as in Germany and Russia, mili-
tarism reigns supreme. It will be so in England, too, before many
years are over, and then good-bye to liberty of any kind. If the
nations of Europe will only cut each other's throats in a Thirty Years'
War there might be some hope for the world, but they are too cow-
ardly for that. All they dare do is to swagger hideously, and talk
about their honour. It will be with them as it is with the Spaniards
who are ruled by military pronunciamentos. With regard to the Drey-
fus case, when I was at Gros Bois last autumn, I asked Wagram the
truth of it. He told me that it was to please the Austrian Govern-
ment that the case had been tried privately, that justly or unjustly
condemned, Dreyfus was an affreux canaille, and had made some con-
fession of guilt, but I see little difference in point of canailledom
between these wretched military spies and their wretched military su-
periors, who employ and pay them. Spying, whether by a paid agent
or a paying agent, demoralises those that indulge in it, and the military
code of to-day recognizes every treachery and every baseness as law-
ful. What nonsense to talk about military honour! There is no
such thing. Can one conceive any greater blackguard than the soi-
disant Esterhazy unless it be his military backers, Pellieux and the
rest ? On our side the Channel, too, we have some pretty blackguards
to show lately.
" gth March, — Left for England. Mohammed Abdu came to wish
me good-bye. I was suffering with great pain so that I felt almost
dying. Two years ago under like circumstances I should have made
him my profession of faith, but to-day no, though I was moved at
parting with him as though I were saying last words to a dearest
friend, but I feel now there is no reality in it all. The Moslems of
to-day who believe are mere wild beasts like the men of Siwah, the
rest have lost their faith. Still less does Christianity appeal to me.
I do not wish to live again. I only wish for the extinction of the
grave. I am going home alone, Anne staying on for another six
weeks in Egypt. I have telegraphed to my servant, David, to meet
me at Venice and see me slowly home. My sole idea now is to be for
a week with George in Moimt Street, and then to be nursed by Cowie at
Newbuildings. It was fortunately quite calm weather on my voyage up
the Adriatic, and at Venice I found an invitation waiting me from
Lady Paget at Bellosguardo in Florence where I stayed two nights,
and then on, arriving in London on the 23rd March, where I found
George Wyndham established in my rooms in Mount Street, which I had
lent him ; there was room for us both there, and his cheerful influence
did me good.
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290 IVhy I Oppose the British Empire [1898
" 24/A March, — George is taking a less practical part now in poli-
tics, being up to his eyes in literature, but he walks home most nights
with Arthur Balfour from the House and hears a good deal of what
is going on. He tells me Lord Salisbury does not intend resigning, and
though he has made over the Foreign Office temporarily to Balfour, he
still keeps interfering with affairs there not altogether to Arthur's
pleasure. In talking about the scramble for China, I had remarked that
I should have thought an alliance with Japan was the obvious English
policy. He said, ' Yes, but it looks as if Japan had been squared by
Russia.' [This is the first mention I can find in my diary of what
was afterwards to develop into the Anglo-Japanese alliance.]
" George's new edition of Shakespeare's poems is just out, and he
is busy editing a new weekly paper, ' The Outlook,' started as a * raft '
on which to save the fortunes of Henley and the other writers wrecked
in the ' New Review.' Gladstone is dying of cancer, poor old soul,
and it has been agreed to soothe his last days with morphia as he
cannot live long.
"29th March, — Lady Gregory came to see me and talked much
about Ireland. She has now become a strong Nationalist, and has been
busying herself about the demonstrations for * '98.' If I were well
enough I would go over for them in May.
"George is much put out at' the inaction of our Government in
China, where there is a combination of Russia, France, and Germany
against us, and at the general failure of Lord Salisbury's policy as a
check to the British Empire. He asked me why I wished ill to the
British Empire. I said, ' because we had done too much harm in the
world, and though the other nations of Europe also do harm, they
are not able to do it so effectively as we do through their lack of
knowledge, and of those qualities that make of Englishmen an admin-
istrating race, also because the Empire is a poor cockney affair invented
hardly twenty years ago to the ruin of our position as an honest
Kingdom at home.' I remember well the disgust of George's father
and of other old-fashioned Tories, when Disraeli first foisted on them
the Queen's brummagem Imperial title.'
" 31^^ March. — * The Chronicle ' has a sensational but probably true
account of an ultimatum sent by the American President to Spain on
account of Cuba. It seems likely to lead to war. If so I hope that
Spain may be able to hold her own, not that Cuban independence lacks
my sympathy, but because between Spain and the United States I am
obliged to be on the side of the older and more barbarous country.
The Yankees as the coming race of the world would be worse even
than ourselves.
" ist April, — At five to-day Lady Gregory brought me the poet
Yeats, an Irish mystic of an interesting type. He is tall, lean, dark.
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good looking, of the same type of countenance as John Dillon's, very
narrow between the eyes and short-sighted. We talked much about
the ' ^98 ' demonstrationes of which he is organizer, and of the coming
doom of England, and we talked also of another mystical poet and
patriot, Russell, (A. E.), with whom Yeats was a fellow student at
Dublin. Russell, in order to subdue his will, became cashier in a
haberdasher's §hop, where he acquired repute as an accountant, but
always spent his Sundays and holidays in the Wicklow Hills, writing
poetry and seeing visions. Russell has now been removed to a higher
sphere as political organizer. Both believe in ghosts and fairies and
in the transmigration of souls, and have magic powers of seeing the
future and of prophecy.
"Yeats experimented magically on me. He first took out a note-
book and made what he called a pyramid in it which was a square of
figures, then he bade me think of and see a square of yellow as it
might be a door, and walk through it and tell him what I saw beyond.
All that I could see at all clearly was that I seemed to be standing on
a piece of green, rushy grass, in front of me a small pool from which
issued two streams of very blue water to right and to left of me. He
then bade me turn and go back through the door, and told me I should
see either a man or woman who would give me something. I failed
to see anything but darkness, but at last with some effort I made out
the indistinct figure of a child, which offered me with its left hand
some withered flowers. I could not see its face. Lastly he bade me
thank the person to whose intervention the vision was due, and read
froip his notebook some vague sentences prefiguring this vision. The
performance was very imperfect, not to say null.
"5fA April, — Arthur Balfour made his statement in the House
to-day of the Government's China policy. George tells me the speech
was ' statesmanlike,' but I gather from him that it was no very pro-
nounced success. Indeed, how should it be? The British Govern-
ment has leased Wei-hai-wei, which seems to be a sort of second best
to Port Arthur, but of no very practical value for coercing Pekin as it
cannot easily be connected with it by land. I should have thought
it would have been wiser either to make an alliance with Japan and
war with Russia, or else to let the whole thing severely alone, but
George thinks Japan has already been squared by Russia.
" 6th April. — I had a bad return of pain which lasted all night until
twelve to-day when I took an infinitesimal dose of morphia, which at
once stopped it and raised me from the depths of misery to the state of
happiness of a schoolboy just loosed from school.
" gth April. — There is an announcement in the papers of * A great
British victory in the Soudan — Gordon avenged.'
'* nth April. — Saighton. I came here for the Easter holiday, arriv-
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292 The Tichborne Claimant Dead [1898
ing in a miserable plight of pain, but to-morrow Sibell (Lady Gros-
venor) is to take me to Holywell to be bathed by the miraculous foun-
tain there for my cure. Some Vandals, calling themselves the Town
Council, are claiming the well which they want to let to a soda water
company at £500 a year, but George intends to oppose this in Parlia-
ment. There is nobody here but the family, including little Percy
and Bendor, the latter grown into a very nice young man. George has
been entertaining Mr. Cecil Rhodes at my rooms in Mount Street
while I was away, using them, I fancy, as a place of secret communi-
cation between the Government and Rhodes, whom they dare not
publicly avow.
" I see the old Tichborne claimant is dead, asserting his rights to
the last. Certainly there was something about the man not wholly
vulgar. I saw a good deal of him at Buenos Ayres in 1868, and,
though a mountain of flesh and of no very refined clay, he seemed to
me a gentleman bom, gone down in the world, rather than a mere
plebeian. Richard Burton, who was there at the same time, and who
travelled across the Pampas with him in the Mendoza diligence, be-
lieved in him as authentic at the time, and so we all did. I remember
seeing him once involved in some vulgar dispute in a cafe, while play-
ing billiards, and he seemed to me to behave as a gentleman would
have done under somewhat trying circumstances, and now they have
buried him with considerable pomp and a coffin plate recording his
baronetcy, attended by the licensed victuallers who supported him as
a show in his last days.
" i2th April, — I have been to St. Winifred's well at Hol)nvell.
After a very bad night of pain I nevertheless made up my mind not
to put off the visit. Fortified with a dose of morphia I set out with
Sibell and George. We went by train from Chester, passing not far
from Hawarden, where the G.O.M. lies dying, and the sands of Dee.
We were fortunate in our day, which, though wild at starting, turned
into a perfect spring afternoon. Sibell had written to Father Beau-
clerk, the Jesuit at Holywell, to expect us, but he was away. I was
glad of it, as thus I was free to bathe as a plain pilgrim without re-
ligious supervision. I suppose no pilgrim ever washed there with less
Christian faith and at the same time with so little of the mocking
spirit. I have a belief in holy places and holy people quite apart from
all religious creeds, and I felt a great confidence in the Saint that she
would do me good. We arrived at the best moment of the day, at
one o'clock when everybody was away at dinner, so that we were alone
and there was no difficulty in that sweet old place in supposing our-
selves back in the fifteenth century. The girl in charge of the gate
gave me two towels, and I had brought a nightgown with me, and so
plunged in. It was cold work, though the water, they say, is 52
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degrees, but I did the traditional three journeys through the water up
to my armpits, going down into it by steps and up the opposite side,
and then took a complete dip over my head in the outer tank and knelt
on St Bruno's stone. I was quite alone while doing this, except for
George. Then, when I had dressed, we sat awhile together in the
sun, and went on to the inn for luncheon, where Sibell was, and so
home in the afternoon to Saighton. The buildings of the well are
still almost perfect, the shrine just as it was put up in Henry VIFs
time, not a stone of the pavement renewed nor an)rthing of the modem
kind except some wooden dressing sheds and a few stupid scrolls with
texts hung up inside the shrine.
" i^th April, — I have had no pain all day, thanks to St. Winifred,
a long night of sleep and to-day no pain. I spent the afternoon with
Sibell, talking about the chances of life and death and of a world be-
yond. The longer I live, the less I believe in any such, at least as
far as my own living again goes. I feel that I have worn out my vital
force and that eternity can bring me nothing but a dreamless sleep.
All the same, I believe in St. Winifred and her Well, and include her
in my canon prayer as my patron saint, which I have a right to do,
seeing that I was named after my great-grandmother, Winifred
Scawen."
My miraculous cure thus wrought did not last long. I had no sooner
turned my back to St. Winifred and Saighton than my pains began
again, and I began to think that the Saint had made a fool of me. I
saw new doctors in London, but they were unable to help me, and
after lingering on there until the 6th of May I went down to New-
buildings to bear my troubles alone. " The world," I wrote, " is only
meant for those who are in health, and the maxim of our forefathers
was a sound one, that a dying man should keep wholly out of sight."
This was the last entry in my diary before the crisis came. On the
following Sunday, after a night of great suffering, I broke a blood-
vessel, and for a week or more lay in danger of death, nursed by the
careful hands of the good Cowie, our housekeeper, and of Sydney
Cockerell, who had just entered on his duties with me as my private
secretary. Between them and my hospital nurse. Miss Lawrence, who
then first undertook my charge, they saved my life. Then I recognized
that St. Winifred had only deferred her benefits, and that, as in the
case of most miracles, she had chosen a natural road of cure. How-
ever that might be, the cure, though it nearly killed me, was an in-
disputable one. The pain from which I had been suffering so long
had left me desperately weak, it is true, in body but clear in mind,
and able once more to take an interest in life, and at the end of three
weeks to resume my diary. The first entry I find in it contains the
following:
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294 Death of Bume-Jones [1898
" 28th May. — To-day Mr. Gladstone is being buried in Westminster
Abbey.
"6th June, — Cockerell is a treasure, arranging my books and get-
ting me others. He is full of interesting recollections of Morris.
Apropos of the lovely little Kelmscott volume, containing ' The Night-
ingale and the Cuckoo/ he assures me that Morris had never heard the
nightingale sing, and that he used to complain of it; also what seems
even more incredible, that he had not read the poem through, and was
waiting to do so for it to be in print. The proof-sheets came the day
he died, and he never read them. We are putting the new bookplate
into our Kelmscott books, where it looks a natural part of the volumes
as the bookplate was cut by the man Morris employed for his armorial
designs. Cockerell has been of the greatest use to me, arranging my
papers and giving me new interests in life. I have written several
Sonnets and an inscription in verse for the table Mrs. Morris gave
me ; my mind is vigorous and clear." [The table here referred to was
the dining-table used by Morris and his family when they lived at
the Red House, and given to me by Mrs. Morris when she was dis-
persing her furniture on leaving her house in Hammersmith.]
In the meantime Anne and Judith had returned from Egypt. They
had been lingering on at Paris, but had been hastened back by my illness,
and were now in London, having taken a house there for Judith's
London season.
" igth June. — Bume- Jones is dead. This is a vast misfortune. He
was to have painted Judith as one of the figures for his last picture,
' The Vale of Avalon,' but that will never now be. According to his
wish he is to be cremated, and then buried at Rottingdean. It is an
honour for Sussex that it should hold his ashes.
" 5th July. — Percy Wyndham, who has been down to see me, tells
me that he had spent the afternoon with Bume- Jones two days before
he died. Bume- Jones was in the highest possible spirits, playing at
* Bear * with Pamela's children. Later, however, a friend had dined
with him, to whom he had talked gloomily of the prospects of the world
and of the human race. The friend had remarked that no one should
have such pessimistic views who was not an atheist. To which Burae-
Jones had exclaimed, 'Thank God, we are not that.' He had been
taken ill suddenly in the night, and had died in half-an-hour. With
Madeline, too, I have had much conversation about Burae-Jones. She
had written me a beautiful letter about him and Morris, and had asked
me to write a sonnet for her about them. ' I should like it better,' she
says in it, * than anything else you could possibly do for me, and you
are the oxily person almost who could, if even you can, and I will wait
no matter how long for it, and if I depart from this life from pure old
age while waiting, well, I shall hope that then I shall be even better able
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to appreciate it in my future and next development than now. But,
for the sake of the world, a sonnet, something beautiful about them,
ought to be written. Such writings act as beautiful reflectors to the
divine light (that immortals such as those two were) have left to the
world, in the beauty of their work, it directs the eyes of those that
knew them not, to see and know them, for the world in some ways is so
dark that even the Divine Light needs a reflector or glasses to guide the
eyes, the spiritual eyes, darkened eyes I had rather say, for it is the
darkened eyes in the human race, not the darkened world that pre-
vents them seeing and knowing the glorious divine light and beauty that
is in this world, only few see it, either in Nature or Art. Some are
blind, hopelessly blind, others have films on their eyes, but they can be
removed. At first they only see trees as men walldng, but finally they
can see, see and so live, but they at first require glasses and reflectors,
and artificial means of help, and, to my mind, Poetry can be and is the
art of all others that helps us most in this world to see. Each divine art
acts as a guide and reflector to the other; Poetry helps Music, Music
Poetry, both cast light and concentrate it on the other arts.' This sug-
gested the sonnet I have since published, and which begins ; ' Mad are
we all, maids, men, young fools alike and old.'
"15th July. — ^Wotton. I find Evelyn with strong Spanish sym-
pathies in the war that is going on, on the same grounds with mine.
The papers announce the news of the surrender of Santiago de Cuba on
honourable terms, and there is great talk of peace being made, but I
doubt its being near. Spain has less to lose than America by going on
with the war, her colonies being practically already gone, and Europe
being almost certain to prevent a Yankee Invasion of Spain. The fin-
anciers who inspire the Press call out however, for it, and would have
it made at any price, as it is injuring trade.
** 2nd August. — Bismarck is dead. My only personal recollection
of him is of meeting him at old Lord Brougham's in Grafton Street.
Lady Malet, who was Brougham's stepdaughter, some say his natural
daughter, asked me to tea alone, to meet him, and he came and stopped
talking with us very pleasantly for an hour. He had been an old ad-
mirer of Lady Malet's when they had been together diplomatically at
Frankfort, and they were still on very intimate terms. This may have
been in 1862. My memory of him is of a tall rather thin man, with
agreeable manners, and talking English perfectly. At that time some-
what of an Anglomane, he was still unrecognized by the general public
of Europe as a great statesman. Indeed, he was laughed at in Ger-
many for his reactionary, out-of-date opinions, and was not a little un-
popular with the masses. If he had failed to win at Sadowa, he would
certainly have been torn to pieces by the Berlin mob. Lady Malet had
always the fullest faith in his genius.
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296 The Battle of Omdurman [1898
" gth September. — On Monday the 6th news came of the defeat of
the Khalifa and the taking of Omdurman, and with it of Hubert
Howard's death, my only friend there and almost the only one on our
side to lose his life. The slaughter of the Dervishes seems to have
been premeditated and ruthlessly carried out. When I was at Bramber
the other day Button told me that ' a heavy butcher's bill ' had been
ordered, as it was intended to make the avenging of Gordon a chief
feature of the business. Telegraphic communication with England was
on this account stopped (the excuse being that the wires had been
broken by a storm) lest any order of moderation should come, and as
far as I can read the despatches since received, there must have been a
wholesale massacre of the wounded and fugitives. The figures given
to-day are ten thousand counted corpses, sixteen thousand wounded,
who have crawled away to the river or the desert, and three hundred
or four hundred more killed in the town of Omdurman after the fight,
and only three thousand to four thousand prisoners ! ! ! As Button told
me, ' the performances of Tommy Atkins in the way of killing at At-
bara (a few days before the fight at Omdurman), passed everything
ever heard of. He was like a raging wild beast.' One may be pretty
sure that orders were given to spare none.
" All this has moved my bile to the point that I have written in pro-
test to the ' Times,' but I doubt if they will print my letter. The whole
country, if one may judge by the Press, has gone mad with the lust of
fighting glory, and there is no moral sense left in England to which to
appeal. It is hideous but unmistakable.
" Hubert's death is pitiful. There was nothing in the world to take
him there, for he was not in the army, nothing but a boyish whim. He
dined with Anne and Judith in London almost the night before he
started, and told them he was determined to fight. He was a delightful
boy, with a ringing, merry laugh it did one good to hear, and he had
considerable abilities, and the best of hearts, and he ends in a blind alley
of Omdurman a paid servant of the 'Times.'
" lO^A September.— My letter to the ' Times ' is printed, which is
more than I expected. I am curious to see whether it raises an echo
anywhere, but as yet no voice has spoken in any London paper, except
that Miss Gordon protests in her brother's name against his being
'revenged.' A queer Christian country ours! On the other hand
there has been an outbreak in Crete, a Moslem mob has risen against a
party of English marines sent by the Admiral to raise the custom dues,
and some have been killed, and the British Vice-Consulate has been
burnt, and Cretan Christians massacred, Edhem Pasha and the Turkish
garrison looking on."
One characteristic letter was written to me at this time, apparently
by a parson ; it says, " By a curious coincidence an answer to your let-
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ter in the ' Times ' of yesterday is given in one of the Psalms for this
morning's service, viz.. Psalm Iviii, verses lo-ii: 'The righteous
shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance ; he shall wash his footsteps
in the blood of the ungodly, so that a man shall say, Verily, there is a
reward for the righteous, doubtless there is a God that judgeth the
earth." A more important letter, however, was to follow from no less
a personage than Herbert Spencer. Spencer was not at the time known
to me personally, nor had I at that time ranked myself among his dis-
ciples, and the letter came to me as a surprise. It reached me 4th
October.
" 4th Oct — A most interesting letter has come to me from Herbert
Spencer on the subject of my letter about Omdurman, and mentioning
also an article on my poem, * The Wind and the Whirlwind.' [This
article, I afterwards learned, was by Francis Thompson.] Spencer
has long looked out, he says, for a poet who should write a poem, the
main lines of which he sketches in his letter and he asks me to undertake
it. (It was to be a dialogue in Heaven after the manner of Goethe's
* Faust,' between God and Satan. Satan complaining that mankind has
surpassed him in wickedness, sacrificing to Thor and Odin while
nominally sacrificing to Jehovah.) I wish I could think myself capable
of doing this with any effect, but I am too hopeless of getting such a
subject listened to at the present moment and too little believing in the
divine government of the world."
This led to a correspondence between me and the philosopher and
eventually to my undertaking to write a poem, " Satan Absolved," more
or less on the lines suggested. In a second letter, dated 6th October,
Spencer writes : " My beliefs are pretty much as pessimistic as those
you express. . . . Did I think that men would remain in the far future
anything like what they now are I should contemplate with equanimity
the sweeping away of the whole human race." [For the first letter see
Appendix III.]
" 12th Oct. — A visit from Mrs. Meynell and her husband, and
Francis Thompson at Newbuildings. I had invited them to come for
the night, but Meynell had explained that this was impossible, * the poet
(Thompson), having an inconvenient habit of setting his bed on fire.'
They came down, however, for the day. I met them at the station, a
very lovely day, and as we drove through the woods Meynell pointed
out to me that ' the poet of nature ' was wholly absorbed in the ' Globe '
newspaper he had brought down with him in the train, such being the
way with London poets. Thompson, though bom in Lancashire and
speaking English with a broad provincial accent, is a true Cockney.
He is a little weak-eyed, red-nosed young man of the degenerate Lon-
don type, with a complete absence of virility and a look of raptured
dependence on Mrs. Meynell which is most touching. He is very shy.
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298 The Fashoda Quarrel [1898
but was able to talk a little when the general conversation was not too
loud, and he seems good-hearted and quite unpretending. He has writ-
ten no poetry, Meynell tells me, now for some years, being cured of his
morphia. But Meynell thinks the fountain may some day break forth
again. Meanwhile, he gets a living by literary criticism in the ' Acad-
emy ' and other journals. When we all went out after luncheon to the
woods, I found him quite ignorant of the names of the commonest trees,
even the elm, which he must have seen every day in London. I pointed
one out to him, and he said, * I think, a maple.' On the whole, how-
ever, I liked him, for he was quite simple and straightforward. Only,
it was difficult to think of him as capable of any kind of strength in
rhyme or prose. Meynell has greatly improved conversationally with
years, and has become a most agreeable man. Thanks to him, the visit
was a pleasant one and they all went home in spirits.
" 15th Oct. — All this week has been one of excitement over the
quarrel with France about Fashoda. A Blue Book has been published
giving the English case, and, imperial plunder being in question, all
parties, Tories, Whig, Radical, Churchmen, and Nonconformist have
joined in publicly extolling English virtue and denouncing the French.
For myself I see nothing in it more respectable than the wrangle of
two highwaymen over a captured purse, morally both sides are on a
level. The English position in the case is that there has long been a
scheme of appropriating the Soudan with all the Upper Nile to the
Lakes — this, in anticipation of the event which must some day happen,
of the British occupation of Egypt proper coming to an end, through
European intervention. The scheme has so far been disguised, and
whenever objection has been raised, the Egyptian claim to the old
Soudan provinces has been put forward and, as we have seen, the
Egyptian army has been made use of to do the rough work of re-con-
quest, only now and then have there been indications given of the truth.
In the present Blue Book there is one where Lord Salisbury instructs
Monson to declare at Paris that ' By the military events of last week all
the territories which were subject to the Khalifa passed, by right of
conquest, to the British and Egyptian Government.' Yet all the gobe-
mouche press is ringing the changes on our ' legality.' And what a
strange plea of legality as towards Egypt! What would be said in
private life if a guardian and trustee who had undertaken to manage the
estate of a minor, as we forced the Egyptian Government in 1884 to
abandon the Soudan and leave it derelict, and then, the opportunity
having occurred, should take possession of those dereKct farms as be-
longing to nobody and should do this with the approval of the whole
world, moral and religious ! Yesterday, there was a great public meet-
ing in favour of universal peace, and our leading Nonconformists on
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ihe platform applauded Lord Salisbury for having thus swindled Egypt
and defied France. We live in an odd age.
" Judith's engagement to Neville Lytton was annotmced to-day.
" i6th Oct. — I think very seriously of the crisis between England
and France. It will likely enough lead to a war, for both sides being
in the wrong each naturally sees the other's wickedness and so believes
Itself right. The best road to an agreement between them would be
that each should give up its preposterous claim to the Nile Provinces.
Lord Salisbury, among his many reasons for renewing the Soudan
campaign three years ago, said that the destruction of the Khalifa's
power would make it easier for England to evacuate Egypt. Let him
keep that part of his programme and France will be satisfied. Our
people, however, want war, fancying it is a favourable moment for
dealing single-handed with France. I hope we shall not be invaded in
Sussex.
" 17th Oct. — To Saighton. Things look very warlike with France,
and war would certainly happen if the position in Europe were at all
less unfavourable to the French, but as it is their Government will
certainly not risk a fight if they can help it. The danger lies in the
weakness of their Government, in the long discredit into which France
has fallen, and in the ascendancy of the army. There may be a revolu-
tion any day and representatives of the Bourbons and of the Bona-
partes are announced as being on the frontier.
" Arrived at Saighton. I have had it out with George about Fash-
oda. He states the English case with brutal frankness. * The day of
talking,' he says, * about legality in Africa is over, all the international
law there is there consists of interests and understandings. It is gen-
erally agreed by all the Powers that the end of African operations is to
" civilize " it in the interests of Europe, and that to gain that end all
means are good. The only difference between England and France
is which of them is to do it in which particular districts. England in-
tends to do it on the Nile, and it makes no difference what the precise
legal position is. We may put forward the Khedive's rights if it is con-
venient or we may put forward a right of conquest, or a right of
simply declaring our intentions. One is as good as another to get our
end, which is the railway from Cairo to the Cape. We don't care
whether the Nile is called English or Egyptian or what it is called, but
we mean to have it and we don't mean the French to have it. The
Khedive may be kept on for some years as a sort of Indian Maharajah,
but it will end in a partition of the Ottoman Empire between Eng-
land, Germany, and Russia, France will be allowed North-western
Africa. It is not worth while drawing distinctions of right and wrong
in the matter, it is a matter entirely of interest.'
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300 Pilgrims to Holywell [1898
" This of course is the true thought of our Government, and has been
for at least ten years, but for the first time to-day it is beginning to be
avowed. George represents all that is most extreme, most outrageous,
in modern English politics, and it marks the decline of the higher tradi-
tions to find one like him proclaiming and defending it. I shall not
write again to the * Times,' I should only mar the effect of my last
letter, which has certainly been great, and do no good. The dispute
between France and England is a dispute between rival card sharpers,
and the very best thing that can happen is that they should beat in each
other^s heads.
" iSth Oct. — Worked all the morning at * Satan in Heaven ' [' Satan
Absolved']. George has gone up to London.
" igth Oct. — Made my pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Holywell in
drizzle and fog, taking my nurse. Miss Lawrence, with me, and my
crutches, which I deposited at the Shrine, bound up with a nightgown
and a label thus inscribed :
" ' Set here in thankful token of a cure from long sickness after
bathing in St. Winifred's Well. By her servant W. S. B. October 19,
1898.'
" The scene inside the shrine was the most interesting I ever saw in
Europe. Three men were being passed through the water stark naked,
but for a slight bathing drawer round the loins, and each time after
passing they knelt on the pavement, dripping wet and prayed aloud. A
priest was reciting * Hail Marys,' and at the end of each * Hail Mary,'
* Holy Winifred, still in an unbelieving age, miraculous.' There were
lighted candles and flowers, and the fervour of these naked men, one
a mere bag of skin and bones, was tremendous. In the dim light of a
foggy day nothing at all congruous to the nineteenth century was
visible. It was a thing wholly of the middle ages, the dark ages, the
darkest of the dark ages, magnificent, touching — it brought tears to
my eyes. I hung up my crutches in a corner with other relics, and
placed Sibell's flowers which she had sent as a thank offering on the
altar, and knelt for some ten minutes reciting the Penitential Psalms.
" Outside the shrine I found Father Beauclerk, a young, good-looking
Jesuit, but deaf and afflicted with some ailment, perhaps paralytic. He
told me that the Town Council of Holywell was about to try its power
of closing the Well, and so of preventing the bathing, which has gone
on here precisely as it is to-day since the rebuilding of the Shrine in the
reign of Henry VII, and doubtless for many hundred years before it.
The true legal ownership of the water seems in doubt. The Duke of
Westminster is Lord of the Manor, and granted some thirty years ago
a long lease to the Town Council, but by some accident never signed it.
The Town Council in its turn leased it to the Jesuits, who put up a
railing and established a charge of twopence a head for maintenance of
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the place. This charge the Town Council holds to have barred the
free access of the public to the water. Otherwise the public right would
seem absolutely clear. Certainly no bather has been refused admission
since before the Norman Conquest. Father Beauclerk took me to see
one Lambert, an innkeeper, who gave me further particulars, and who
agreed if guaranteed in costs to contest the matter as a Holywell rate-
payer and habitual bather. He tells me religious feud is at the bottom
of the mischief. Father Beauclerk has been imprudent in making use
of the Well for purposes of conversion, and in running it as a religious
show. This has enraged the Nonconformists, who have determined to
put down the pilgrimage as a Popish nuisance. In order more com-
pletely to desecrate the Shrine they propose to lease it to a Soda Water
Company at £500 a year, and close the Well on a plea of sanitation.
Lambert himself is a Protestant, but having been cured of sciatica by
bathing there, is a partisan of the Well. As an innkeeper, too, his
interests are affected, for the town depends largely on pilgrims for its
prosperity. It is clear that steps must at once be taken to save the
Shrine, and I gave Father Beauclerk a cheque for £20 towards legal
expenses. He seems, however, to be sadly unpractical, and we must
put the conduct of the case into other .hands.
"20th Oct — .Back to London, where I saw Treheme, the Anti-
Scrape lawyer, about St. Winifred's, and also Cockerell. In the even-
ing a telegram came from George to say that .the Duke of Westminster
would take action in the matter, so that relieves us of a great difficulty."
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CHAPTER XIV
" SATAN ABSOLVED " — THE BOER WAR
"George is in high spirits, as he has just been appointed Under-
Secretary for War, a less interesting place than the Foreign Office, but
still important, especially at the present moment. Things look more
and more warlike, as Russia seems to be backing France, and I suspect
most of the Continental Powers are against us. It is impossible Lord
Salisbury should maintain the full ground he has chosen, that of re-
fusing to negotiate without a war. The French will not give in like
that. The way out of the mess would seem to lie in the direction of a
European Congress, or at least of European intervention in the interests
of peace. George says that the British fleet has its programme ready,
and the French fleet would be shut up in their ports in a few days. He
and the ultra Jingo section of the party are all for war. He gets £1,500
a year by this appointment.
" 22nd Oct, — To Paris, by Newhaven and Dieppe, much the plfeas-
antest route. I have not travelled by it since I landed at Newhaven
in a storm with a shipload of frightened refugees flying from Paris after
Sedan.
" 2yd Oct, — Neville came to breakfast with me, and later old Juli-
enne, Francis Currie's bonne, who amused us with her view of the
political situation. The government of France, she said, was in the
hands of ' un tas de gueux, passez-moi le mot,' who were pillaging the
country, and there must be a new rigime — Orleanist, Bonapartist, or
what ever else, she did not care, so long as it was not Dreyfusist. As
to the Fashoda trouble, it was all the rapacity of * la grosse Victoire,'
meaning our own gracious Majesty, who wanted all the earth for her-
self and would leave nothing to poor France. * Nous sommes bien bas,
allez.' I fancy this represents pretty fairly the general opinion at
Paris.
" At 3 to Gros Bois, where I found our hostess entertaining two
Parisian ladies, dressed up like Parisian dolls, a ci-devant Russian
beauty, the Comtesse de Talleyrand, and Mme. Chevreau, her neigh-
bours. We were a party of six at dinner, lively in the usual French
way, which means all talking at once. I had some quiet conversation,
however, with Wagram before the guests arrived. He refuses to be-
lieve in a war and thinks the thing will be arranged. Russia, if it came
302
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to war, would fight too, and we should be attacked in India. I see that
Redmond is openly declaring himself at Dublin in favour of the French,
but I doubt if either Ireland or India is really attackable.
" 24th Oct. — Wagram was away all day shooting at Chantilly with
the Due de Chartres. Prince Henri d'Orleans was there and showed
him a number of abusive letters he had received, mostly from Ger-
mans, in connection with the Dreyfus case, he being a violent anti-re-
visionist. Wagram brought back with him in the evening the Fashoda
Yellow Book just published.
"25/A Oct, — The new Yellow Book gives a much more dignified
form to the French argument than it has received in our Blue Book,
and I consider that, logic for logic, M. de Courcel has the best of it.
It is also clear that, as I suspected. Lord Salisbury has been negotiating,
though it is equally clear that he has allowed his back to be stiffened by
the London Press and his colleagues' speeches and Lord Rosebery's.
The French terms are now pretty fairly formulated. They will evacu-
ate Fashoda on being allowed to keep the Bahr el Gazal with access to
the White Nile. A Cabinet has been called in London for to-morrow,
when a final decision will be come to. In face of the extraordinary out-
burst of Jingo violence in England I doubt such terms being accepted
and war seems probable ; nobody, however, here seems of that opinion.
" M. Hanotaux, late Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Vandal
were here to-day and I had much conversation with both. Neither
would hear of war for such a trifle as Fashoda. M. Hanotaux main-
tained that no war would be popular in France, that nobody knew where
Fashoda was, or cared three straws about the Marchand Mission. He
even considered the Eg3rptian question itself one of small importance for
France. As for the Bahr el Gazal, it was *a country inhabited by
monkeys and by black men worse than monkeys.' A war with England
over such a dispute would be worse than a crime, a folly. He was of
opinion that such a war would ruin both countries. It would last two
years ; it would be carried on interminably because neither could vitally
attack the other. ' I admit,' he said, ' that your fleet may destroy ours,
that you may blockade our ports, and that we could not land troops in
England, but what then ? You could not touch us in France, or even
in Algeria or Tunis ; it would ruin your trade and leave you at the end
worse off than ourselves. You would find yourselves faced by a triple
coalition. I do not believe in the possibility of war.' I told him of the
military fever we were suffering from in England, but he refused to
believe that Lord Salisbury, who was * un homme d'Etat,' who looked
at the future, would quarrel to this extent with France, England's only
possible ally, for any such cause.
" I asked him about the Army, what its feeling was, what line it would
take? ' The French Army,' he said, * is always ready to fight when the
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304 Nobody in France Wants to Fight [1898
word IS given, but it does not busy itself with politics, and will not in-
tervene to force on any policy. It can be counted on absolutely to
obey its orders, whether for peace or war. No war would be popular
now in France, and there was no such military fever now here as I
had described in England.' He added, however, that if the Army at
any time found a leader in any popular general who should become
Minister of War, the situation might change, the public might easily
become excited. If an appeal were made to it by the Government
against England then the Army would, doubtless, show its readiness to
fight. The Dreyfus case was also discussed. Vandal and Wagram
were against revision, Berthe and, cautiously, Hanotaux for it. This
was continued between Berthe and Wagram to the point of violence
all the evening, Wagram maintaining that there were secret pieces of
evidence which if made public would ruin the Army and ruin France,
Berthe that no conceivable evidence could have such effect, the only
people to be ruined being the General Staff. Personally I am much
charmed by Hanotaux, who talks well on many subjects and without
display of vanity. He has a pleasant regard and a sympathetic voice.
He gave me his views on architecture and art and talked to me, as
knowing him, of Herbert Spencer. Vandal also talked well, but is less
interesting. Both are academicians.
" 26th Oct. — The Brisson Ministry has resigned and all is confusion
in Paris. This will probably ease the tension towards England and
make a peaceful solution more possible.
" M. et Mme. Sommier, the owners of Vaux, and a Mme. de Brie
came to luncheon. Sommier is a man of cultivation and intelligence,
who has taken in the ' Times * newspaper for years so as to get news
of the outside world, a rare circumstance in France. Like all the rest
he says war is impossible for such a trifle as Fashoda, that France is
not prepared for war, and that nobody wants to fight.
" 27th Oct. — Three men arrived to shoot pheasants, M. Chevreau,
Comte de Gontaut Biron, and Comte de Kergoulet, all men of great
intelligence and good talkers as well as good fellows. We shot in the
forest beyond the park, but had no great sport. In the evening there
was an excellent political discussion, turning principally on the over-
throw of the Brisson Ministry and the chances of their succession.
They think it probable that Delcasse will remain at the Affaires
Etrangeres. None of them will hear of a war with England, in which
they say they would be beaten. My neighbour at dinner, M. de Kerg-
oulet, a young Breton gentleman of old family, did not scruple to say
they would withdraw from the Nile and apologize rather than that.
None of the party, except Wagram, expressed any very different senti-
ment. I proposed as a bridge of escape from an impossible situation
that the French Government should express its willingness to acknowl-
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edge Egypt's right to the whole of the Nile provinces, but not the right
of England. I believe that this would practically save them from their
dilemma without loss of honour, and would leave the Nile question for
a more favourable moment for raising it in conjunction with the whole
Egyptian question. The question of Alsace-Lorraine was also de-
bated, and it was generally admitted that there must be sooner or later
prescription, a limit of time beyond which resentment could not be con-
tinued, though that time had not yet come. But for this the German
alliance was what would be most advantageous to France and a coalition
against England. I asked them whether they thought it true that the
Emperor William had proposed such a coalition two years ago, and
they said it was most probable, but not certain. Such a coalition was
impossible at present on account of the sentiment about the lost prov-
inces, and nations live by sentiment, it was the mainstay of their
patriotism. I had it on the tip of my tongue to say patriotism is the
virtue of nations in decay, but I felt that that wotdd be hardly civil,
though the aphorism would be a good one. [A better one would be,
' patriotism is the virtue of weak nations, it is the vice of the strong.']
" M. de la Siseranne was also of our party, an excellent talker like
the rest, but with more pose, as one would expect from his position as
confSrencier and dogmatic art critic, a shock-headed man tailli en
brosse, less attractive than the others. He was strong on the point of
the time being nearly come when the animosity about Alsace-Lorraine
could be decently buried. 'There is,' he said, 'prescription for all
things, one does not now refuse one's hand to the descendant of him
who guillotined one's ancestors in 1793/ meaning, no doubt, Camot.
" 2%th Oct. — To Paris on my way home. Called on Abu Naddara,
who gave me some details of die Marchand mission. Marchand had
come to him three years ago to ask his advice about penetrating to the
Upper Nile, and how to make friends with the Khalifa, and he (Sanua)
had given him papers inscribed with texts from the Koran, and as I
understood him, introductions from one or two persons at Omdurman.
Marchand's idea was to go and make friends with the Mahdists and
help them against England. He was certainly sent by the French
Government. Sanua is severe on the stupidity of French diploniacy,
and considers France very low down in the scale of European nations.
He told me a good deal about his visit to the Sultan Abdul Hamid,
who had received him with all honour, and allowed him to speak frankly
and openly about affairs. He says the Sultan is acquiring an immense
prestige from the Emperor Wilhelm's visit, which is everywhere in the
East regarded as an act of homage. It was Abdul Hamid who first
suggested to the Emperor to get rid of Bismarck. On his first visit to
Constantinople they were talking about Bismarck's great power in
Europe, and the Sultan said, ' I should not like to have so powerful a
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3o6 Abdul Hamid Instructs Wilheltn [1898
servant, would your Majesty like to see how I treat mine?' William
said, * Yes.' Abdul Hamid then touched a bell, and when the attendant
entered said, 'Send for Kiamil,' the then Grand Vizier. Instantly
horsemen were despatched at a gallop through the city seeking the
Minister, who presently appeared and stood, with head bowed and
folded hands, before them. The Sultan for awhile took no notice, and
let him stand, then casually * You need not wait, it is of no consequence,
go,' and the Grand Vizier went. William took this lesson to heart, and
dismissed his Chancellor hardly less brusquely.
"Dined with Neville and his friend Geoff roi, a young fellow art
student of a modest serious kind at the hotel where I was their enter-
tainer. We discussed art, literature, and politics. The young man is
rather socialistic, hates the army, in which he is just about to be obliged
to serve, and is a Dreyfusard. He assures me military service is most
unpopular, and war still more so. It is clear nobody in France win
take up the quarrel thrust on them by us over Fashoda.
" 2gth Oct. — Back to England. To-day it is announced that
Marchand has left for Cairo, so the quarrel solvitor ambulando.
" yd Nov. — Newbuildings. Knowles has agreed to my writing on
the Fashoda affair in the ' Nineteenth Century,' but says he hopes I
will not forget the motto which is his, ' my country right or wrong.'
What absurdity I One would think that England was a poor struggling
nationality, oppressed by a strong neighbour, and in need of the help
of all her sons, not what she is, the mill in which all the nations are
being ground.
" 4th Nov. — Anne and Judith left for Egypt, I staying on in Eng-
land for the winter. Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis's
Rooms, where he is near his work at the War Office. We discussed
the Fashoda business about which there will certainly not be war,
George said. Also that our Government had squared the Emperor
William. The Duke of Devonshire and Henry Chaplin were lunching
at another table, and greeted George as ' dear George.' Of Chamber-
lain, George said, ' He is for war at any price.' He (Chamberlain)
has just come back from America, where they are going through the
same absurd military fever that we are here.
** 7th Nov. — At Newbuildings with Cockerell. Delcasse has made
his climb down about Fashoda, certainly a pitiful one, which reduces
France almost to the level of a second-class Power. The Emperor Wil-
liam meanwhile has been touring it in Syria, and making speeches at
Jerusalem. I fancy his concurrence with English policy has been
bought by some promise of recognizing him as the Sultan's protector
with a future reversion of the Holy Land. Our Jingo papers, especially
the * Chronicle,' have been clamouring for the annexation of Egypt, or
at least the declaration of an English Protectorate, but that is probably
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not within the limits of Lord Salisbury's present agreement with
WUhelm.
"gth Nov. — Left Newbuildings for Gorsey End, near Lyndhurst,
for the winter, driving in beautiful weather by Rogate, where we are
being entertained by Hugh Wyndham and his daughter Florence, stop-
ping also to call on Charles Wyndham at Midhurst. Hugh, talking of
the agreement with Waddington made in 1878 at the Berlin Congress
in regard to Tunis, told me that he had had it from Odo Russell that
the thing was transacted at the British Embassy. Odo Russell had
said to him, ' You must be prepared for some startling moves,' and told
him what had happened. This was soon after the agreement." [Sir
Hugh Wyndham had been Secretary of the Berlin Embassy at the
time.]
The whole of this winter I spent in the New Forest, having been
advised to go there for my health, as I could get easy hunting there,
and so be much out of doors. My principal friend in the neighbourhood
was Sir William Harcourt at Malwood, whom I saw frequently, but
otherwise I was much cut off from political society, though I went up
now and then to London. At Lyndhurst I was busy writing my
poem, " Satan Absolved."
"20th Nov. (Sunday). — To luncheon at Malwood. Sir William in
excellent form, principally about the bishops, with whom he is now in
violent conflict. He narrated to us a conversation he had had with the
Duke of Devonshire as to the nomination to a bishopric. The Duke's
account of it was this: 'He had written two letters to Salisbury,
recommending a fellow, he couldn't remember the fellow's name, and
Salisbury hadn't even answered. He had written because Courtney and
another fellow, he couldn't remember his name either, had wanted it.'
On inquiry it had turned out that the proposed nominee was Page
Roberts, and Sir William had taken an opportuniy of asking Lord Salis-
bury why he hadn't made Page Roberts a Bishop. ' The fact is,' said
Salisbury, * I thought they were talking of Page Hopps, and we gave
it to some one else.' ' That,' said Sir William, ' is the way they make
bishops.' Our luncheon was quite a feast, as Lady Harcourt has a very
good cook. Rawnsley and his wife were there.
" 22nd Nov. — Knowles has returned me my article on * Fashoda,'
on the plea of its being too late, and that, besides, it would not be wise
to publish it, doubtless the true reason.
*' 2Sth Nov. — Cromer has consented to give Judith away at her
wedding if I am prevented from being present. This is as it should be,
for personally I have always been on pleasant terms with Cromer, much
as we may tilt politically.
" 3rd Dec. — To London, where I saw George Wyndham. He tells
me they had a tremendous dinner a few nights ago, all the Under-Sec-
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3o8 Farewell Dinner to Curzon [1898
retaries, at which, after the consumption of much champagne, they
toasted each other as * the youth of the day and the future Cabinet of
1910/ AH were present except Austin Chamberlain, who had been run
over by a cab.
" 8/fc Dec, — Basil Blackwood came to breakfast with me in Mount
Street, just back from a shooting expedition in East Africa. He gave
me an account of it, as well as of Hubert Howard's death. He and
Hubert had been very close friends. Basil is a nice youth, not a little
like what his father was when he was young.
" 10/ A Dec. — I have been buying books with Cockerell's help at
Morris's sale, his * Gerarde's Herbal,' a Bemer's * Froissart,' and Ma-
lory's ' King Arthur,^ the Copland edition of 1557, the last a book to He
always on one's table.
" Last night there was given a great private dinner to George Curzon,
at which most of the ladies who are our friends were present. [This
was a farewell dinner to Lord Curzon of Kedlestone on his departure
for India as Viceroy. I have an amusing letter from Curzon of that
date, as member of the Crabbet Club, excusing himself for accepting
an office which, according to our Rules, entailed a resignation of mem-
bership, but I cannot print it here.] Both George Wyndham and
Sibell gave me an account of the feast. He, George Wyndham, recited
a poem he had written for the occasion. Hugo (Elcho) proposed
Curzon's health in a speech which George declared beat even his
(Hugo's) record, and Curzon's reply was also most amusing. No
pressmen were invited except Harry Cust, if he can still be called one.
It is described in the evening papers as a ' congr^ation of the Order of
the Souls.'
" i6th Dec, — The event of the day is Harcourt's retirement from the
leadership of the Liberal party. The true reason of his retirement is
the conversion of the whole party, or at least the whole Liberal Press,
to Jingo Imperialism. I wrote yesterday to congratulate him on his
published letter. To-day I have a line from him in answer. He says :
' Anche io have escaped out of gaol and am a free man.' I hope now
that his tongue and Morley's will be let loose to attack the militarism of
the day, of which Rosebery is the most outrageous champion. They
will have plenty to say and will give dissentients heart. There must
be a few lovers of liberty left in England, but for the moment they
have no voice more powerful than Labouchere's. I consider Har-
court's retirement a distinct gain for liberty, if not for Liberalism.
" lyih Dec, — To London on business, and dined at the ' Travellers,'
where I was introduced by d'Estoumelles to his new Ambassador,
Cambon. I had a long talk with the latter about desert travelling, and
my adventure at Siwah. Having mentioned that I was at Paris at the
time of the late crisis they asked me ' which crisis,' and I without think-
Digitized by
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1898] Cambon the New French Ambassador 309
ing said 'the crisis of Fashoda.' Cambon's countenance fell at the
word, and he changed the conversation, though heaven knows I meant
no harm. It is arranged between d'Estoumelles and me that I should
get up a little dinner at Mount Street for the Ambassador after the
Jour de VAn, but I fear I should disappoint d'Estoumelles* expecta-
tions. He counts, among other inducements, upon my inviting Lady
Galloway, who, being Lord Salisbury's sister, he thinks would interest
Cambon. He wants Cambon to make a good impression in English
society. When he finds out how little I am a persona grata with the
Government he will probably be less keen for my assistance ; however,
that is their affair. [N.B. Cambon had been sent to England after
the Fashoda affair and the change of Ministry at Paris, expressly to
bring about a good understanding between France and England, and in
this he succeeded admirably. I believe it to have been due to him more
than to any other Frenchman, except perhaps Delcasse, that the En-
tente Cordiale was come to four years later with the withdrawal of all
French opposition to England in Egypt. It is probable that at the
time of Fashoda an understanding was come to between Lord Salisbury
and Delcasse for the partition of North Africa. Engbnd to have the
East, France the West, Germany and Russia to be eventually allowed
the spoil of Turkey and Persia. The full development of the plan
being put off till the death, when it should happen, of Sultan Abdul
Hamid.]
" 19/A Dec. — Old Lord Napier and Ettrick, Mark's father, is dead.
He was a man of distinction, and no small ability. He was for many
years in diplomacy, and was then sent as Governor to Madras. The
last I saw of him was six or seven years ago, when I was at the Glen.
His chief achievement in life was the making of Mark.
** 26th Dec. — I have been staying at the Danes for Christmas, a
family party. To-day we drove over to North Minmis, to make ac-
quaintance with Loulou's financSe. North Mimms, a beautiful old
place, but turned inside out by a Victorian architect, who has been let
loose on it regardless of expense. Loulou's new relations are Ameri-
cans, the yotmg lady simple and unaffected, and tenderly attached to
Loulou."
I ended the year 1898 at Ockham with Ralph and Mary, more happily
than was its beginning. "The first four months were of exceeding
physical pain with the final breakdown, followed by a great contentment
of mind and body. That great act of abdication, ' the taking to one's
deathbed,' teaches one the value of the smaller pleasures of life. In-
tellectually I still feel growth, and while growth continues one is not
yet old. Judith's marriage has been an event of supreme satisfaction.
" 1st Jan., 1899.-^ I am back at Lyndhurst. Lady Lytton tells me
that the Queen was greatly opposed to Neville's marrying before he
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3IO I Try Sir William Harcaurfs Temper [1899
came of age, and that her Majesty is constantly inquiring about the date
of the wedding, and has been soothed by being told that Neville will
at least be twenty on his wedding day.
" 4th Jan. — To Malwood, where I had a long talk with Sir William
Harcourt about the line he ought to take as an independent member of
the Opposition. He told me that he intended to bring forward the
whole anti-Imperial case on grounds of economy. I told him that I
did not think he would get much following that way. Nobody cared
enough about economy to be enthusiastic over it. I thought he would
have more success if he gave his opposition a moral basis, exposing the
demoralization of England through the violence and bloodshed Im-
perialism entailed, the fraud, lying, and hypocrisy, and the growth of
militarism. Carried away by my argument I pressed him so closely
that he almost lost his temper, and as a final word said : ' Well, what
you say may be true, but this is my plan, and I mean to stick to it.'
Lady Harcourt, however, who was there, took my side, and afterwards
made me go with her upstairs to see her boy Bobby, and repeat to him
my argument. ' It will do him good,* she said, ' for he is just at a
moment of crisis when a very little may turn his ideas one way or the
other.' I found the boy in bed with a cold, writing his views on politics
in a copy-book, and I turned my eloquence on him. Old Sir William's
ill-humour was almost pathetic, and did not last long, and Lady Har-
court said to me as we went upstairs, ' He will not really mind, and he
will remember what you said when you are gone.' Really there never
was a moment, when a man with convictions and some knowledge of
foreign affairs, could do more in England.
" Bennett, one of the military correspondents in the Soudan, has writ-
ten a powerful article in the * Contemporary,' exposing the barbarity
of the war, about which all the country has been shouting triumph, and
about Gordon College at Khartoum. The British public are paying to
ease their consciences for the incredible slaughter of Omdurman.
" 6th Jan, — The run of the season with the New Forest deer hounds,
in pursuit of an old roebuck from Lady Cross Lodge right across the
open heath of Beaulieu plain, very fast to the far side, when he turned
back and again faced the open. About the middle of the plain, on his
second journey, he lay down, and jumped up in the middle of the
hounds, racing away for two miles in view with the pack at his heels
to Hackett Pond, where he took the water and swam for ten minutes
with the pack after him, and out again, and was run into and killed in
the open. They say they never had so good a nm before. It lasted
seventy-five minutes. I was riding Mahruss, who carried me in the
front rank all the way, the only heavy weight that went fairly with the
hounds.
" yth Jan. — Cromer has made a speech to the Soudanese Sheykhs at
Digitized by
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1899] Riding the Soudan 311
Khartoum, declaring they will now be ruled by the Queen of England
and the Khedive of Eg3rpt. This lets the cat out of the bag. I was
quite sure the thing was in contemplation from the reticence of Lord
Salisbury. All these weeks he has been allowing the rest of his Cabinet
to make altruistic speeches about the Soudan having been * reconquered
for Egypt/ but has been mute himself, remaining by his telegram to
Monson. The high moral nature of the transaction has been appealed
to by every newspaper in England notwithstanding Bennett's exposure
of the atrocities of the campaign. I have written to congratulate Ben-
nett on his courage.
" 13th Jan, — Indoors all day writing about the new settlement in the
Soudan. It is ludicrous to follow the antics of the so-called Liberal
papers, the ' Chronicle,' the ' Westminster Gazette,' and the rest, in
their endeavour to make the seizure of the Upper Nile for England fit
in with their moral heroics about England's duty of ' reconquering it
for Eg3rpt.' What they don't understand is that Lor^ Salisbury was
very quietly playing with them. He was delighted at the time of his
ultimatum to France to get the support of the Radical Press, and he let
them run on to their hearts' content about England being Egypt's trustee
and the Nile being Egypt and Egypt being the Nile — that was Rose-
bery's phrase — and it pleased him that the Nonconformist conscience
should call heaven and earth to witness what a moral and unselfish
nation we were, and how abominable were the French, who would
pilfer Egypt's inheritance. He was glad to get the support of the
Exeter Hall people and the bishops and the clergy by letting them
boast of the evangelical missions they were going to start at Khartoum,
all the while having up his sleeve this card of Kitchener's, English
Viceroyalty of the Soudan in the name of Her Gracious Majesty and
a strictly Mohammedan Protectorate. The world are fools, or rather,
they ask to be deceived, and deceived they are. The * Chronicle ' will
very soon come fully into line with the ' Tel^raph,' and find it an ex-
ceedingly clever trick to have made a cat's-paw of the Egyptian Govern-
ment in English interests. What can be more amusing than to add the
Upper Nile to the British Empire, and make the Egyptian fellah pay
for his conquest and maintenance, the profit being wholly for England.
Meynell tells me that when Sir William Butler (who is his brother-
in-law) met Kitchener on his arrival at Dover, he said to him, ' Well,
if you do not bring down a curse upon the British Empire for what you
have been doing, there is no truth in Christianity.* Kitchener only
stared.
" 14th Jan, — Drove to Abbotsworthy to stay with George Lef evre,*
where we have had a deal of talk about politics. Lefevre is of opinion
that Rosebery's retirement from the Leadership of the Liberal party
^ Now Lord Eversley.
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3^2 The Modern Practice of Confession [1899
was resolved on by him with the idea that he could get Lord Salisbury's
succession, if not as Unionist Prime Minister, at least as Unionist
Foreign Secretary. This is likely enough. We went to look at St.
Cross and the Cathedral at Winchester. The old 'brother' at St.
Cross, one Joyce, who acted as showman, was describing to us the
mechanism of an ancient confessional in the wall of a church there,
and I asked him, * Do you hold, sir, with the modem practice of con-
fession?' His answer was amusing. * Modern confession, sir. I was
taking a lady round the church last week, and when we came to this
*ole in the wall, I invited her inside. " Now, Madam," I said, " have
you nothing to confess to me ? " And she was a pretty woman, sir.
" I confess," said she, " that I 'ave been in 'ere alone with you quite
long enough." That's my idea of modem confession and you may let
Sir William 'Arcourt know it with my compliments.'
" 15/A Jan. — Back to Lyndhurst, stopping on the way at Malwood
for luncheon. Sir William is immensely pleased with my confessional
story, which exactly hits his humour. Loulou was there, and Bobby,
the younger boy, and we had a great discussion about poetry and poets.
I expounded to them the glories of Malory's * Morte d' Arthur.'
" 20th Jan, — The papers give the text of a convention made between
Cromer and Boutros Pasha — a leonine convention indeed. The text,
however, shows it less of an annexation than Cromer's speech sug-
gested. As far as I can read its meaning it would become legally in-
operative if England evacuated Egypt, for it provides only ' a system
for the administration and making of laws . . . giving effect to the
claims which have accrued to Her Britannic Majesty's Government by
right of conquest to share in the present settlement and future working
and development of the said system of legislation.' This can hardly be
construed into sovereign rights. Nevertheless, it is practically as bad
as possible for Egypt, for it will saddle on her the whole cost and
labour of the war of reconquest not yet completed and make her budget
responsible for Soudan deficits.
" 21^ to 2yd January, — At Hewell. I have made friends here with
Rowton and have talked Egyptian and other matters over with him.
He is, of course, a Jingo of the Jingoes, as becomes a courtier of the
Queen and Disraeli's once private secretary, but he can talk without
asperity even on the delicate subject of the British flag at Khartoum.
" 2nd Feb. — To-day is Judith's wedding day. I came up to London
and joined Edith L)rtton and the family dinner party, where we drank
the health of bride and bridegroom. Edith had with her a telegram
from Her Majesty expressing sympathy, and later another saying that
she had telegraphed to Lord Cromer asking for news of the wedding
and giving his reply, ' marriage duly performed,' This Her Majesty
had underlined to show, Edith explained, her disappointment at the
Digitized by
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1899I Kitchener Digs Up the Mahd^s Body 313
baldness of the answer. The Queen, she said, would have liked some-
thing gushing, but, of course, Lord Cromer treated it merely in an
official way and would go to no expense. Both telegrams were signed
'V.R.I.,' which, Edith says, is always Her Majesty's signature now.
I thought the ' I ' had been reserved for communications east of Suez,
but the Queen is pleased with her title of Empress and uses it always.
She has shown great interest in the marriage all through.
" 7th Feb. — The ' Times ' publishes my Soudan letter in a prominent
place, and as to-day is the opening of Parliament it may perhaps do
good. Nubar Pasha is dead, and they are giving him a public funeral
at Alexandria, while all the English papers are full of his praises, yet
this wily Armenian arrived penniless in Egypt fifty years ago and has
made four millions out of his various tenures of office. For this he is
applauded by the London Press as an Egyptian patriot and statesman.
He was unable, I believe, so much as to talk Arabic.
" 12/A Feb. — Lord Salisbury has given certain explanations in the
House of Lords about the Soudan which are better than nothing, but
the Opposition is too flabby to push him farther than he condescends
to go.
" i6th Feb. — Called at 44, Belgrave Square, where Mary, Pamela
and Madeline are sitting for their portraits in a group to Sargent. It
is being painted in the drawing-room. In the background there will
be their mother's portrait by Watts.
" igth Feb. (Sunday), — Faure, the French President, is dead, and
there is a good deal of excitement over the event, but I do not anticipate
anything final at present. The chiefs of the Army would like to over-
throw the Republic, but in the absence of any popular candidate for the
throne, they are afraid to move. The rank-and-file, especially the con-
scripts, would not follow them.
" 22nd Feb. — I have been helping to get up an agitation against the
Parliamentary grant of £30,000 to Kitchener, and questions have been
asked in the Commons. Brodrick admits the digging up of the Mahdi's
body and the throwing it into the Nile, and they are bringing further
questions about the mutilation, that is to say, about young Bill Gordon's
having cut the head off to keep as a * curio.' The whole thing is revolt-
ing — a piece of military revenge for the death of Gordon and the
defeat of Wolseley and excused now on the absurd plea of its having
been 'a necessity in view of the possibility of a fanatical revival.'
What makes the desecration worse is that Sir Herbert Stewart's grave
had remained all these years untouched in the desert where he fell, but
the Liberal front bench is ready to condone every horror, being more
Jingo than the Jingoes.
"24th Feb. — To the House of Commons for the Soudan debate
which was led by Morley, ably and courageously. I heard Grey speak
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314 Pierre Loti at Constantinople [1899
in good parliamentary style, but without eloquence, the Tories applaud-
ing him. [He had become Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs under
Rosebery.]
"26th Feb. — Morley's speech reads well in the 'Times,' and is
founded for the most part on my letter published a fortnight ago.
There is to be a separate debate about the desecration of the Mahdi's
tomb.
" 1st March. — Gave a dinner to the two Ambassadors, Cambon and
Staal — with Margot, Lady Windsor, and Mrs. Benson for other
guests ; it was very gay, thanks to Margot, who talked imperfect French
with great courage and volubility, and amused us all. Staal was as
usual witty and charming, and after dinner Cambon, who is a bit of a
poseur, sat on a sofa between two of the ladies, telling stories of Pierre
Loti and his fabulous love adventures. Loti, when at Constantinople,
had made the acquaintance of an Armenian lady of the half world, and
on that slender foundation of romance built up his tale of an intrigue
with the Turkish inmate of a harem of the Eyub quarter who died of
jealousy for his sake. So successfully had he done it that he had con-
vinced himself of its truth, and to the point that when he returned to
Constantinople, and was staying at the French Embassy, he came in
one day from a walk, and assured Cambon, who knew the true story,
and Loti knew that he knew it, that he had just been to weep in the
spot in the Eyub quarter where he had been so happy. He had found
the quarter burnt, and the house reduced to ashes. Cambon assured
us that Loti did this in all good faith, having been able to persuade him-
self to believe in these bonnes fortunes as things that had actually
happened.
" Sth March. — Lunched at the French Embassy. Staal, Maxse and
his daughter, Margot and others. I asked Staal, who sat next to me,
how it was that Tolstoy managed to remain on in Russia, untroubled
by the Government. He said it was entirely due to the great literary
position he held in Europe. It was thought wiser to tolerate him at
home than to send him away to exile.
" gth March. — George Wyndham came to see me this morning, and
I lunched with him and Madeline Adeane later at Belg^ave Square,
where we saw the first sketching in of Pamela's head which Sargent
had just done in a couple of hours' work. It is wonderful as a likeness
and as a bit of rapid execution, giving just her playful prettiness, and
the peculiar wave of her hair, a sketch in the manner of Velasquez,
with exactly his strong touches, unintelligible when looked close into,
but alive when seen at a distance. Mary, too, has been sketched in not
unsuccessfully, and Madeline less well. It should make a remarkable
picture, probably Sargent's best. He is to be allowed no licence with
the magentas and mauves he loves. I met him on the doorstep as he
Digitized by
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was going out, a rather good lootcing fellow in a pot hat, whom at my
first sight I took to be a superior mechanic.
" 10th March.— By early train to Guildford to sit to Watts. (It had
been arranged for me by Madeline Wyndham that Watts should do
my portrait, a special favour he accorded her in deference to their
long friendship.) The sittings were to be at his house, about three
miles off by the Hogsback, an ornamental, not too ornamented cottage
of the usual Victorian kind, which he has christened ' Limnerslease,'
much to his friends' amusement, Cockerel tells me. Burne-Jones used
to call it ' Dauber's Den,' ' Painter's Palette,' and other nicknames. The
old man, well and alert, went to work at once on me, talking without
interruption the whole time, and sometimes, finding me a good listener,
with eloquence, though he complained of having been unable all his life
to hit the right word in conver&ition, or even in writing. He is by
nature, he says, a poet, but without the gift of expressing himself
in any form of words. That is why he has worked all his life to
express himself in colour, which after all he can only do imperfectly.
He cares for his art, and desires to do it well, but principally as a
means to his end of giving form to his ideas. He also wished to make
these ideas intelligible to the widest circle of disciples, and for this
reason he has refused to connect his art with any special epoch or any
special creed. His figures are ideal figures, which will suit all ages
and all beliefs. He once received a letter from a woman in Australia,
who wrote to tell him that as a girl in Manchester she had found life
so hard, she had intended to die, but by accident had seen a photograph
of his ' Love and Death,' which had consoled her, and now she was
married, and prosperous, and happy. She kept the photograph always
hanging in front of her bed. This he said was a greater satisfaction
to him than any success he had had merely as a painter.
" To some extent he blames Burne-Jones for being too much a man
of one age. He (Burne-Jones) had locked himself up in the four-
teenth century and had stayed there. Except for this he spoke warmly
of him and of his charming qualities. He told how he had set Burne-
Jones once on horseback at Little Holland House, starting him to canter
round a ride he had made there, but he forgot some hurdles which
had been put up and poor Burne-Jones fell off, nor would he ever be
persuaded to mount again. Of Morris, he spoke with less enthusiasm,
and I fancy there was a coolness between them in later years, though
formerly he had seen much of them both. His heroes are Ruskin,
Carlyle, and Rossetti, and he quoted * The lost days of my Life ' as the
finest of all Sonnets, an opinion which has long been mine. He does
not think very highly of Rossetti as a painter, rather as a poet. Millais
and Leighton were his two special friends among artists, and how
many charming and beautiful women! He spoke more than once of
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3i6 Watts' Good Sayings [1899
Lady de Vesci. The handsomest head he had ever paintea was Sir
Henry Taylor's, but his best man's portrait he considers to be Burne-
Jones', his best woman's portrait, Madeline Wyndham's. He
sets greater store,* however, on his allegorical subjects than on his
portraits.
"ii^A March. — To Limnerslease again, having slept the night at
Milford. To-day we talked much on the subject of the destruction of
the weak races by the strong, and, like so many people nowadays,
while deploring it Watts excused it as inevitable, a law of nature and
the fulfilment of destiny. I thought he must have been talking about
this to Gerald Balfour, whose portrait he has just been painting, but
he told me how he had hardly had any conversation with Gerald dur-
ing their sittings. With me he has talked uninterruptedly, sometimes
leaving his work for five minutes altogether to explain and illustrate
his arguments. Two of his illustrations I remember. Speaking of the
ritualistic controversy and the necessity of ceremony <n all religions,
'Ceremony,' he said, 'is the substance of religious belief, it is what
outline is in a picture, it ought not to be required, indeed it does not
exist in nature, but it is often impossible to understand what is meant
without it.' This seemed to me a particularly good illustration. Again,
speaking of the part reason plays in our religious ideas, ' Here,' he said,
pointing to his forefinger, ' is sentiment, here is faith, here is charity,
here is hope, all four fingers stand together on more or less equal terms,
yet they can grasp nothing without this,' bending down his thumb,
'which is reason.' He was intensely pleased when I applauded and
said he had always thought it good.
'• 12/A March (Sunday). — At Newbuildings, gathering the first
spring flowers, which I am going to colour in my Gerarde's Herbal,
the one bought at Morris's Sale.
" I have concluded the purchase of Femycroft in the New Forest
from Lord Montagu, 31 acres of woodland. It formed part of the
hereditary lands of Beaulieu Abbey, an outlying croft where the monks
kept their cows.
" 14th March. — Entertained York Powell with others at dinner.
I have known him since 1863, when he was a boy, and I a quite young
man, travelling in the Pyrenees, but we have hardly met since, though
in correspondence now and then on literary and political subjects, where
we mostly agree. He was made Professor of History at Oxford, some
years ago, and is a good fellow, with a larger mind than Dons usually
possess.
"17th March. — Again at Limnerslease. Mrs. Watts took me to
see Mrs. Hichens' house close by, where there is a portrait of old
Prinsep, the finest Watts ever did. Indeed, I think it almost the
finest portrait ever painted in England. The house is set under a chalk
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pit looking south, and screened from all cold winds. Princess Christian
came in, but seeing strangers, decamped.
'• 24th March. — The Government has published a meagre parliamen-
tary paper upon the doings at Omdurman, and the desecration of the
Mahdi's tomb. Of course everything is denied, or made to appear to
be denied, except the fact, which could not be concealed, of the throw-
ing of the Mahdi's body into the Nile. As to the killing of the
wounded, the denial does not include the general order which, without
doubt, was given of killing men lying on the ground in battle after
they had fallen. This is thought to be excused by the story, much ex-
aggerated, of wounded men getting up and firing at our soldiers, but
the true reason of the slaughter is that Kitchener was campaigning on
the cheap, and did not wish to be encumbered with prisoners, and
especially wounded prisoners. This, and the desire to have ' a record
bag ' as a revenge for Gordon. The destruction of the tomb is a crime
of which Kitchener meanly excuses himself by saying he was away
when it was done, though he had given the order, and for the political
reason of preventing the tomb's becoming a centre of pilgrimage, and
so of fanatical feeling. This is mere fustian. The thing was done to
emphasize the revenge taken, young Gordon, Gordon's nephew, having
been sent for from Cairo expressly for the job, and given command
of the bombardment during the battle, with orders to fire at the tomb.
Afterwards he was intrusted with the blowing-up of the ruins and the
violation of the grave. Kitchener admits that ' the skull was preserved
and handed over to me for disposal,' which leaves it to be implied
that young Gordon performed the act of mutilation.
"27th March. — To Brighton to see old Herbert Spencer at his
house in Percival Terrace. I found him lying on a sofa in a dressing-
gown, with slippers on of an ornamental feminine kind. He began by
talking for ten minutes about his health, and explaining that his fresh,
rosy colour was no sign of health ; then he got round to the subject of
my visit, the militarisms and brutalities of the day, the idealization of
football and all games of force, the rehabilitation of Napoleon and other
war-making scoundrels who had long been condemned as such, with
the rewriting of history to suit the agressive ideas now in fashion.
He repeated what he had said in his first letter to me, that if he did not
believe there would be a return to humane doctrines, it might be in a
hundred, it might be in two hundred or three hundred years, he would
not move a hand to prevent the destruction of the whole human race.
He applauded what I had said in writing to him of its being probably
necessary that we should be first beaten and invaded here in England
by a foreign enemy, and he thought it would be the best thing that
could happen. ' I am quite as pessimistic,' he said, * as you are about
the present, only I foresee a change in the remote future.' 'In the
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3i8 Spencer^s Life at Brighton [1899
remote future/ I replied, * it will be too late, everything that is interest-
ing and beautiful and happy in the world will have been destroyed.
The world will be inhabited then only by the ugly and dull, and miser-
able white races.' This made him talk of the South Sea Islanders,
the Burmese, and other unspoiled people. He said he had intended
writing to William Watson to suggest a poem on the gradual degradation
of a South Sea Island community by the missionary and the trader.
Watson had not much backbone in his poetry, but he thought he could
do this. Trade competition was only another form of war waged by
the strong against the weak, less abominable, perhaps, than fire and
sword. For this reason the Czar's peace proposals should be sup-
ported, though they would not result in any real cessation of civilized
aggression. We talked also about race hatred and the influence women
had in fostering it, and I told him about India. He showed me some
beautiful photographs he had had sent him from Burmah, of the
happy poor people there, and contrasted them with the faces of our
own poor. Then complaining of being tired, for he had been talking
very energetically, he sent me down to have my luncheon with the two
ladies who look after him, a housekeeper and a young lady who plays
the piano to him. They are both new in the house, and he seems to
have no relations or belongings except these two, and they are strangers.
After luncheon I went upstairs again, but Spencer soon tired of talk,
and, ringing the bell, he sent for the young pianist, whom he directed
to play Masaniello and a piece by Purcell, which she did for twenty
minutes. She did this very nervously, as he was continually interrupt-
ing her, begging her to play either a little faster or a little slower.
This done, we fell to talk again about the domestication of animals.
While talking he occasionally gets excited, and jumps up from his
sofa and walks hurriedly about the room, until suddenly recollecting
himself and his health, he stops. He explained to me that he had been
an invalid since he was a young man, and he will be seventy-nine next
Tuesday, and has a right to be careful.
" On the whole I am rather disappointed with Spencer. He is so
very dry, and so much wrapped up in himself, his ailments, his work
and his ideas, to the exclusion, it seems to me, of individual sympathies.
His mind is clear and logical, he expresses himself well, but without
eloquence or such power as compels attention; not once was I able to
feel myself in the presence of a great man, only of a very well-informed
one, a pedagogue and able reasoner. There was nothing in him of
the softening character which old age so often gives, and which is
so touching. Still I am glad to have spent this day with him, for his
is one of the great names of our time, and his work has been great.
His rooms in Perceval Terrace are cheerful, facing the sea, and he
seldom moves out, the ladies tell me, except for a drive in the after-
Digitized by
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noon, nor does he often see people, so I may take his asking me to visit
him as a very high compliment. He has promised to send me a copy
of his volume on Sociology. At three I left him and walked back to
the station, and so home to Newbuildings, glad not to be a philosopher.
" I2th April. — Yesterday and the day before I have been entertain-
ing Prince and Princess Sherbatoff, showing them the stud, with her
brother, Count Strogonoff, both highly intelligent Russians, and breed-
ers of Arab horses." [Sherbatoff had travelled in our footsteps in
Mesopotamia, and had started an Arab stud on his estate somewhere
between Moscow and the Ural mountains, on the same principle of
thorough breeding as our own.]
" Sir Wilfrid Lawson sends me the heads of a speech he intends
making on the Soudan vote. It reads like the speech of Balaam, and
I have answered him: ^If English Liberals and humanitarians leave
it to the Irish to express disapproval of Kitchener's ways with the
wounded and his treatment of the Mahdi's head, I can only say that
they had better vote in silence. You praise Kitchener for his deeds
as a soldier. It is all the argument needed to justify the parliamentary
grant. Kitchener did not make the policy of the war, for that he is
not responsible, but he was responsible for the brutal way he conducted
it, a brutality which makes his success, no very great one, a disgrace.'
" My final sitting to Watts. The old man was more agreeable and
interesting than ever, and we parted on terms of real affection. The
portrait is a fine one, the best, he said, he ever painted, but this is more
than the truth, for it cannot compare with his great achievements of
thirty and forty years ago. Our talk has never flagged for a moment
during the sittings. I told him of my visit to Herbert Spencer, and
asked whether he had ever painted him? ' How could you expect me,'
he said, * to paint a man with such an upper lip? ' He has no opinion
of the philosopher as a man, and declares him to be wholly selfish.
" iSth April.— Tht first nightingale.
" Young Oliver Howard came to dine and sleep, and to consult me
about a hare-brained expedition he was bent on to Jerabub and Kuf ra.
I strongly advised him to turn his thoughts elsewhere. It is quite
enough that his brother Hubert should have got killed in Africa without
his doing the same, and for even a stupider reason. Neither he nor
any of his proposed companions have had the smallest experience of the
North African desert or know a word of Arabic, though one of the
party has been in Somaliland shooting lions. For his father's and
mother^s sake I dissuaded him.
" 22nd April. — Anne returned from Egypt, having left Judith and
Neville at Paris.
**27th April. — With Cockerel to see the new mosaics at St. Paul's
about which there has been angry correspondence in the 'Times.'
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320 History of the Mahdfs Head {1899
They are not in the best style of decoration, but the over brilliancy of
the mosaics will soon bladcen in the London smoke and tone down
to the rest.
" On my way back from London in the evening we travelled by
accident with D , who as usual was full of interesting talk. He
told us, with a little pressing and on promise not to give him away,
the true history of the Mahdi's head. The mutilation of the body seems
all to have come of a mere bit of rowdy nonsense on the part of
certain young English officers. He says it has long been a custom with
the members of White's Club who are in the Army to bring back
trophies from any wars they may be engaged in and present them to
the club. He, D , had jokingly proposed to E W to
bring back the Mahdi's toe-nails from the coming campaign. Kitch-
ener, on this hint, seems to have fancied having the Mahdi's head for
himself to make an inkstand of, and gave Gordon the order to dig
the body up and keep the head for him. This accordingly was done,
and at the same time finger-nails were taken by some of the young
officers, but they got talking about it at Cairo and hence the trouble.
He says he had the whole account of the thing in detail from W ,
and that Kitchener received the head from Gordon, who was charged
with the destruction of the tomb, and he actually had it (he, Kitchener)
as an inkstand until Cromer wrote about it, when he * put it behind the
fire.' D was quite incredulous about its having been buried at
Wady Haifa, or anywhere else. It was just put ' behind the fire.'
* He gave an interesting account of Kitchener, whom he had known,
he said, ever since they were both together at Woolwich, before the
French war. He, D , was at a preparatory military school, read-
ing for the military college, but Kitchener had passed in. Kitchener
was * a rough young devil,' and he and another cadet got into a row,
partly about a woman, partly about money, and Kitchener's father,
who was poor, refused to pay up for his son. The son, consequently,
ran away with the other boy, and was tried by court-martial as a
deserter. The two went to France and enlisted in the French army and
fought in the war in the Army of the North, and Kitchener got some
credit for his handling of a mitrailleuse on one occasion, and eventually,
when the war was over, came back to England and got old Linthom
Simmons, then the head of Woolwich School, to forgive and take him
back, and he got his commission. * But,' said D , * he always was
what I have said, and did not know how to behave.' His conduct
afterwards to the Khedive proved this. He was, however, a wonder-
ful organizer, though a bad general. He had very nearly lost a battle
at Atbara by his clumsy handling of the troops, and again at Omdur-
man, when he had wheeled the Egyptian army in such a manner as to
place it between the Dervishes and the English contingent, so that
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these last were unable to take any part in the firing. Now he had been
given absolute power in the Soudan, and was using it in the most arbi-
trary way. When Carlisle went up to Khartoum to visit the grave
of his son Hubert, Kitchener ordered him back immediately he had
performed this duty. He would not hear of Carlisle's staying longei
than the second day.
" yd May, — Dined at the Centenary of the Sussex Club, a piece
of local patriotism out of my usual way ; indeed, it is twenty-five years
since I dined with the Qub. There were ninety-three members pres-
ent, the Duke of Norfolk presiding, who did the duties simply and
well. I sat between Henry Campion of Danny and Brown of Holm-
bush. They asked me to take the Chair at their next dinner, a thing
which would have entailed a speech on me at this one, but I managed
to get out of it. My father was one of the first members, having been
elected in 1808.
" i%th May, — Yesterday I was in London and met my friend Harry
Brand,* just back from Australia, where he has been Governor of a
colony. He found it dull work among people without literature, art,
or culture of any kind, except a taste for bad music. He was offered
to stay on as Governor-General, but wisely refused. Harry and I are
contemporaries and we swore, long ago, the oath of brotherhood, so
I have invited him to take up his residence in Mount Street with me
till his country place. The Hoo, becomes vacant in August.
" 19th May. — Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis's Rooms.
He told me of a book young Winston Churchill is publishing, blurting
out all kinds of inconvenient truths about the Soudan campaign. The
desecration of the Mahdi's tomb Winston calls * a foul deed,' as indeed it
was.
"26^A May, — I have written to Morley on the Kitchener case, as
he is taking it up publicly and has made a speech on it at Lydney. The
Liberal newspapers, however, are afraid of touching the matter, and
the ' Daily News ' burks this portion of his speech.
" 27th May, — I have finished my poem, ' Satan Absolved,' and feel
more content with life in consequence, having the sense of having done
all I could, and having made my individual protest against the abomina-
tions of the Victorian Age. The 24th was the Queen's birthday. Her
Majesty being now eighty. There is a foolish letter in the • Times *
pointing out the wonderful fulfilment of a prophecy of Sidney Smith's,
who, sixty years ago, exhorted her Majesty to make it the boast of her
life to avoid war and to have it on her conscience to say, * I have made
no orphans or widows.* This for one whose reign has seen whole races
of beings exterminated under her rule, and only the other day thanked
God that her troops had destroyed 30,000 Dervishes !
^Lord Hampden.
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322 England's Overlordship of the World [1899
" 2%th May. — George Wyndham came down last night to dine and
sleep, and to-day I drove him to Worthing, where we lunched with
Henley. On our way over the Downs we stopped and walked up to
Chanclebury Ring, which George had never done, and found some
white dog-violets nearly at the highest point. George has told me a
good deal about the internal rivalries in the Cabinet, wWch may well
break out if anything happens to Lord Salisbury. What he calls the
reactionary Tories are headed by Hicks Beach, but the young Tories,
including himself, would not serve under Beach. As long as Arthur
Balfour is there they will follow him, but if atiy accident sent him too
out of the leadership they would revolt from the main Tory body and
form a third party of ultra-imperialists with Chamberlain. About
foreign politics George says that it is now simply a triangular battle
between the Anglo-Saxon race, the German race, and the Russian,
which shall have the hegemony of the whole world. France he con-
siders gone as a great Power, as much gone as Spain or Austria, but
the Emperor William means to be supreme overlord. He is holding his
hand for the moment till he can get an efficient navy, but as soon as
this is ready there will be a coalition against England. He, George and
the young Imperialists are going in for England's overlordship and
they won't stand half-measures or economy in pushing it on.
" 3rd June, — Young Winston Churchill has made a speech in which,
while condemning the desecration of the Mahdi's tomb, he excuses
Kitchener on the ground that it was done in his absence and that he
was keeping silence in order not to incriminate his subordinates. This
throws the odium of the deed on young Gordon, a quite innocent per-
son, for both Anne and Judith, who have been seeing Gordon and his
wife at Cairo all through the winter, assure me that he repudiates the
deed with absolute disgust. I have consequently written to the * Daily
News ' telling the truth about it.
"4/ A June {Sunday), — Lunched at Sir Wilfrid Lawson's where I
found John Morley. We had a long two hours' talk about the Kitch-
ener vote which is to come off to-morrow. Morley is very fierce
against Kitchener, and I gave him what help I could, besides what I
wrote to him on the subject. But he is hampered by all sorts of condi-
tions. I urged him not to admit the capture of Omdurman as a great
feat of arms. It was a trumpery affair for which to give a peerage,
but he would not take this line, though it really invalidates his whole
argument. He is already in a depressed frame of mind, for Campbell
Bannerman is to second the vote, and he thinks the result of the debate
will be to make a further cleavage between the two sections of the Lib-
eral party, his own anti-military section being left with a small minority.
Even Harcourt's vote he thought was doubtful. I proposed to go and
see Harcourt and try and persuade him to vote against the grant, but
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Morley said, * If you do, for God's sake don't tell him you have seen
me,' which shows how little confidence in each other there is among the
chiefs, even of the Anti-Jingo section. He ended, however, by say-
ing I might as well go to Harcourt without mentioning him. I found
Sir William at the Avondale Hotel in capital spirits, but when, after
some talk about the New Forest, I mentioned the Mahdi's head, I saw
his countenance fall, and he changed the subject to the Transvaal, where
he thinks trouble is coming, and then while we were talking about it
he was suddenly called out, and I did not see him again. I asked Lady
Harcourt when we were alone to try and get him to support
Morley, but she said, ' I have given up trying to get him to do any-
thing but what he chooses,' which I take to mean he will do nothing.
" 5th June. — Again to London where I found a note from Lady Har-
court, telling me that what had interrupted my talk with Sir William
yesterday was the news brought him of Loulou having been taken ser-
iously ill, so that his wedding, which was fixed for to-morrow, has had
to be put off.
" My letter about Kitchener is in the * Daily News ' neutralized ac-
cording to an editorial dodge by printing next to it what is headed as
' The true story ' in contradiction to mine. At first I was alarmed lest
young Gordon might have confessed, in spite of his denial, that he was
the real culprit, so I went down to Chelsea and lunched with my kins-
man, Gerald Blunt, at the Rectory (whose son's wife was a sister of
Gordon's), and he reassured me on this point. He says that Gordon's
family are furious at the slur cast on him. Then at four to the House
of Commons. George had got me a good seat in the special gallery,
and I found myself among friends, Rennel Rodd, George Peel, Canon
Wilberforce, and others. Kitchener, who returned to England last
night, was sitting with Roberts in the Peers' gallery. After the usual
irrelevancies, Arthur Balfour opened the debate in a brief speech
recounting Kitchener's services, for the Opposition was quite unequal
to the occasion. Kitchener's name had not been very warmly received,
and it would have been easy to appeal to the better feeling of the
House, though the result of the vote could not have been altered, but
Campbell Bannerman's rising to second the vote, though he expressed
himself pretty strongly on the 'vulgarity' of the desecration of the
tomb, put things at once into a false position, and Morley who followed
to oppose it, with the strongest of possible cases, proved feeble beyond
all recorded feebleness. His arguments were weak to fatuity, and he
gave himself away over and over again till the House laughed at him.
So much was this the case that Balfour already found himself in
sympathy with the House before he rose to reply. He did this in a
speech of great skill and eloquence, which, as mere oratory, it was a
relief to listen to» and he succeeded even to taking a high moral line
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324 Kitchener Explains [1899
with the wretched Morley, and in proving to him conclusively that
Kitchener was absolutely justified, indeed bound by every principle of
right feeling to blow up the tomb, dig up the body, chuck it into the
Nile, and what he called ' disperse the remains.' Absurd as his argu-
ment was it was conclusive with the House, and Morley had not even
the wit to ask what became of the poor head, or who was entrusted
with the various operations. I doubt if Morley will ever make a speech
again in the House, I should not if I were he.
" Personally I am not altogether dissatisfied with the result. We
have gained at least this, that we have forced Balfour and the Govern-
ment and the House of Commons to declare themselves in favour of
the extreme abominations of war, and have in so far exposed the
hypocrisy of modern England. It is better so than that the country
should have it in its power to boast that it did not approve, although
it did the deed. Kitchener got his £30,000, his money perish with him !
I was glad to notice that, except old Roberts, who came with him to
the House, none of his brother Peers in the gallery offered him a
congratulation, or spoke a word to him.
" yth June, — In all the newspaper articles on the Kitchener Debate,
not one has the wit to see the flaw in Balfour's argument. It rests
entirely on Kitchener's assertion that he had the Mahdi's tomb pro-
faned, and the body dispersed deliberately with a political intention,
that of publicly showing the Mohammedan world of Africa that the
Mahdi was an impostor. The untruth, however, of this is easily dis-
coverable even in the meagre Blue Book published. If it had been
true it is certain Kitchener would have reported the fact with the rea-
sons to Cromer at the time, and that Cromer would have reported them
at the time to the Foreign Office. But though the thing happened in
September, and though Kitchener in the meanwhile had been back in
London, and in personal communication with everybody, including
her gracious Majesty the Queen, the Government professed to be ig-
norant of the facts until the month of February, the earliest document
in the Blue Book being one of February 17, when Cromer sent home
a communication of February i from Kitchener. Kitchener then for
the first time gives his explanation thus : ' I would add,' he says, • that
my action regarding the tomb of Mohammed Achmet, the so-called
Mahdi, was taken after due deliberation, and prompted solely by po-
litical considerations.' How anybody at all conversant with the way
in which Blue Books are edited can be simple enough to believe in
face of this comparison of dates, that the * political considerations ' were
not an afterthought passes my understanding, yet is clear that Morley
and even the Irish overlooked the absurdity. The whole discussion in
Parliament was unreal, nobody wanted to believe, except perhaps Mor-
ley. The Irish look on Kitchener with a sneaking regard, as in some
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measure an Irishman, while Dillon has Catholic sympathies which pre-
vent his quite disapproving the crusade. In this way Balfour's absurd
argument held its ground, and I suppose will hold it in history.
" i$th June. — The plot for annexing the Transvaal has taken a new
development. Chamberlain, to force the hand of the Government, has \
published a despatch of Milner's written on the 4th of May of the \
most aggressive kind, and the newspapers are full of flame and fury, \
the * Daily News ' leading the chorus. They talk about Milner's ' cool
and impartial judgment' just as if Milner had not been specially
selected by Chamberlain to put the job through. Milner was sent to
Egypt ten years ago to convert English Liberal opinion to the plan of
remaining on there instead of withdrawing the garrison, and having
succeeded in that mission he has been sent to the Cape to convert
English Liberal opinion to the idea of reannexing the Transvaal.
Milner, though an excellent fellow personally, is quite an extremist
as an imperial agent, and his journalistic experience on the ' Pall Mall
Gazette ' has given him the length of John Bull's foot very accurately,
so that he is invaluable to the Empire builders. Now there will cer-
tainly be war in South Africa. They have tried every kind of fraud
to get their way, but old Kruger has been too astute for them, so they
will try force. They seem to have squared the German Emperor,
France is in chaos, they think their opportunity come. Chamberlain
will not rest until he has Kruger's head on a charger. The Boers,
however, will fight, and there is some chance of a general war between
the Dutch and the English in South Africa, which may alleviate the
condition of the only people there whose interests I really care for in
the quarrel, namely the blacks. It will also be a beautiful exposure
of our English sham philanthropy, if at the very moment the Peace
Congress is sitting at The Hague, we flout its mediation and launch
into an aggressive war. Anythii^ is better than the general hand-shak-
ing of the great white thieves and their amicable division of the spoils.
" I am now staying at Oxford with York Powell at Christ-Church.
Powell is an excellent good fellow, and seems to be much liked at Ox-
ford in spite of his somewhat heterodox views on politics, for he has
a certain Socialistic tendency enough to have widened his mind. We
had a deal of talk to-day, principally on poetry and literature, of which
he has a large knowledge. I told him, among other things, of my
having consulted Jowett fifteen years ago half seriously about the pos-
sibility of my entering the University as an Undergraduate, and how
he had answered me. 'You could never pass the examination for
Balliol, but might try Christ-Church,' ' Insolent dog I ' said Powell, re-
senting the slur on his College. It is lovely weather, the Christ-Church
Meadow looking its best, and while we sat on a bench in the Elm
Avenue talking, a little redstart was watching us. Then we went into
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326 Krugen at Bloemfontein [1899
the Cathedral to see the Burne- Jones Morris windows. Prayers were
going on for the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the Houses of Par-
liament, and they were intoning, * Give peace in our time, O Lord.'
Then we dined in the hall, and talked with two Dons, Myers and an-
other, about Eastern travel and horses, till I got away to bed.
"21st June. — Lane will publish * Satan Absolved.'
" 28*A June. — Herbert Spencer consents to have * Satan Absolved '
dedicated to him, but is in a terrible fright lest it should be found out
that he gave the idea of the poem, ' on account,' he says, ' of the odium
theologicum and the injury it might do to the spread of his philosophy,'
so I have written a preface without exactly saying this, though it is not
very courageous of him to leave me alone in the coming battle.
" 2gth June, — Breakfasted with George and Sibell, who showed me
two very interesting letters from her son Bendor, describing the inter-
view between Kruger and his chief, Milner (whose private secretary
he is) at Bloemfontein. The letters were written actually during the
conference, and contained sketches of old Kruger, whom he described
as very old and infirm, and also very sly. He talked of Kruger as
* bluffing.' He writes with a boy's enthusiasm for his chief, and seems
to be enjoying himself greatly. I showed George my preface to * Satan
Absolved,' which he thinks cannot fail to attract attention.
" On my way home by the late train I travelled as far as Dorking
with Harry Gust. I gave him my view of the way the Transvaal
quarrel had been engineered by Chamberlain and Milner. He pro-
fessed to regard this as the extreme of political scepticism. ' A poet,'
he said, ' should not be so unbelieving in honesty.' He was on his way
down to Admiral Maxse's, where he was to meet Meredith and others.
" %th July. — Our annual Arab Sale, an immense concourse of peo-
ple, 380 sitting down for luncheon in the tent. Colonel Sdanovitch our
principal buyer for the Russian Government.
**%th Aug. — I have been sizymg for the last few weeks at Femycroft,
but to-day I went to London, where I found Hampden at my rooms in
Mount Street. He has been living there all the last month. We went
in the evening to see the Savage South African Show. It is a return
to the shows of Imperial Rome, minus the bloodshed, and is worth
seeing as a spectacle, though it is monstrous to look on at these captives
brought to London to make a Roman holiday. The white swaggerers
who are given the heau role to play in the exhibition are of course dis-
gusting, bjit the black men managed to preserve their dignity and make
the others look foolish. The superiority of the black man over the
white was throughout conspicuous, and it did not need the patter of the
whites on the stage to explain that it was only their maxim guns that
gave the latter their victory."
From 9th August to 16^1 August I was at Femycroft, my new ac-
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quisition in the New Forest, and after that on my annual summer driv-
ing tour once more visiting St. Pagans, where, amongst others, I found
Lord Rowton and Sanderson, of the Foreign Office.
"21st Aug. — Both are good company, and we have had much
friendly discussion of politics. Rowton tells me that never with his
consent will Dizzy's Memoirs be published. He is light in hand and
eminently reasonable, full of amusing anecdotes, especially of his old
master, and pf his lodging-house plans, an odd hobby, for it is not alto-
gether a charity, paying, he tells me, 4 per cent, on the capital, but it
doubtless does much good. Sanderson has talked freely on the Trans-
vaal quarrel, and expresses very moderate opinions. He believes in
a pacific arrangement. This in contradistinction to Windsor our host
who, though the quietest and most moderate of men on other topics,
takes fire about the Transvaal almost as a personal matter.
" 2gth Aug. — Back at Femycrof t. Chamberlain has made another \ ^
violent speech, and it is clear now, as, indeed, it has been all through, \
that he is forcing on a war with the Boers. The Liberal press is j
childish, and there is practically no opposition. The Liberal party has /
swallowed so many violences and so many diplomatic frauds in the J/
last twenty years that it may as well make up its mind to swallow this /
too. I, as an enemy of Empire, shall say not a word.
" 1st Sept. — Partridge shooting witfi Mark Napier and Terence
Bourke. I shot well, the first time since my illness, killing twelve
birds in as many shots, but I am no longer keen for sport of any kind,
and go out principally as an old custom and to justify the expense of
game preserving. My logic about shooting here in England is, that
it is the only way of preventing the destruction of wild animals. If
there was no shooting, no one would be at the expense of paying
gamekeepers, nor would it be possible to prevent the rag-tag and bob-
tail of the towns from snaring and netting. The abolition of the
game laws would mean the extinction not only of all game, but of the
small wild birds and beasts, too, which enjoy the peace of the protected
covers, while, if I did not go out shooting myself, my gamekeepers
would take no trouble to prevent poaching, so I kill my few brace of
partridges and pheasants, that the rest may live in peace. In Egypt,
where there are no game laws and no birdsnesting, I never fire a gun.
'* 3rd Sept. (Sunday). — I have written a long letter to Frederic Har-
rison about the Transvaal, apropos of his open letter to Lord Salisbury,
which has just been published. It is principally to explain to him that
he is mistaken if he really relies on Lord Salisbury to control Cham-
berlain, or to do anything to prevent a war which he and the Queen
desire. Also to let him know what Milner's position is in the affair.
"nth Sept, — The world has gone mad over the verdict of guilty
given in the Dreyfus case. Of course it is abominable, but what did
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328 Morley Gives Away the Case for Peace \.^^99
anyone expect? It was clear from the time that Gallifet took office
that there would be a compromise of the case, and that the compromise
would only be that Dreyfus should be found guilty and then pardoned,
and that be the end of it. As to our virtuous selves, we are of course
in a state of splendid denunciation of our neighbour's sin, this at the
very moment that we are pushing forward a new raid on the Boers,
certainly no smaller public iniquity, huge though the other may be.
I drove to-day to Malwood, but Sir William was away. Lady Har-
court would not hear of war with the Tra^nsvaal.
" 16th Sept, — I have written again to Harrison about the Transvaal, -v^
He answered me a week ago, urging me to write to the * Times ' in the
same sense as I had to him, and as to Salisbury saying, ' It is well to
attribute virtue to a ppwerful man, even if he has it not. It must
make him doubt of it.' This I cannot do, as I am certain the * Times '
would not publish such a letter. I have explained to him how Buckle
is one of the gang acting with Rhodes, and how the Jameson Raid was
concocted, so to say, in the * Times ' office, and how there is no true
peace party in England. The only difference between Liberals and
Conservatives in these cases is, that while both rob with the cry of
*your money or your life,' the Liberals would like the money given
up peaceably, the others after a fight. I have told him that I do not
believe in the possibility of any change of opinion until we have got a
good beating ourselves, and that it is by no means impossible the Boers
may make a formidable stand. In any case it would be better for the
world that they should be destroyed fighting for their independence,
than that they should be bullied or cheated out of it.
• " i9>th Sept. — Femycrof t. A telegram came from Madeline W3md-
ham to say she was coming to spend the day here. I accordingly
met her at Southampton. On the way there I read in the papers the
Boers' refusal of Chamberlain's ultimatum. A very dignified document
it is, and one very difficult for our people to answer. Morley had al-
ready a day or two ago at a meeting in Manchester given away the
whole Liberal case against the war, publicly approving the Franchise
demand, made by our Government on the Transvaal, a mere red her-
ring which the Radicals have run to in full cry. The consequence is
that the whole English press to-day is with the Government and war
is certain." [N.B. The pretext of demanding the franchise for the
Outlanders in the Transvaal was a trap laid by Milner especially for
Morley and the Radicals who stepped into it precisely as was intended.
Once having approved the demand it was impossible for these with any
logic to disapprove the military steps taken to enforce the demand on
Kruger, and war became a necessity.]
" 21st Sept, — The news is all very ominous, indeed it will be a miracle
if war does not break out of itself on the frontier without further
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1899] ^ith Frederic Harrison at Sutton Place 329
waiting, and so give our Government the pretext it wants. Under the
circumstances I have resolved to publish my letter of the 2nd to Har-
rison.
" Dreyfus has been pardoned ; and so thei case ends according
to programme. Our papers are in a righteous fury and Dreyfus
swears he will continue the struggle. But it will not end here. It has
cost France dear — her position on the Nile, her position as a great
European Power, and her good name in the world. Gallifet deserves
well of his country for the courage he has shown and the wisdom in
ending it.
"26th Sept. — Frederic Harrison writes that he wishes to see me
about the Transvaal. He warns me that I should have to modify my
letter to him if I sent it to the ' Times.* It was * violently actionable,'
he said, and as I should have no defence, it would cost me £10,000
to have it printed as it stood. But he hoped I will publish something.
He also tells me as a secret that, at his suggestion, the Queen of Hol-
land has, he believes, written to our gracious Majesty, begging her to
intervene to stop the war, which otherwise is inevitable. This would
seem the best chance, though nothing is more certain than that Queen
Victoria has been a prime mover in the Government policy. These
military blood sheddings are not displeasing to Her Majesty, and she
has just allowed Kitchener to make her a present of a white ass from
Omdurman.
" On receipt of this letter I went to London and at Mount Street
found Hampden. He tells me Lord Salisbury has arranged with
Portugal to take immediate possession of Delagoa Bay.^ This he has
learned confidentially from the Colonial Office. I then went down to
Sutton Place, in which delightful old house I now am staying with
Frederic Harrison and his brother.
** 27th Sept. — Sutton Place. I have had a long talk with Harrison
about the Transvaal, which we both think must fight unless indeed
there is royal interference in Holland. We have decided not to publish
my letter as being too libellous, also the time is a little gone by for it to
do much good. I read him my ' Satan Absolved.' He thinks it should
be the sensation of the year. He will write a review of it in the ' Nine-
teenth Century,' refuting its attack on humanity and giving me an op-
portunity of defending my ideas in prose. This will make it almost
certainly a success.
" The Harrisons, or rather, Sidney Harrison and his mother, have
been tenants of Sutton for twenty-five years. The house is much
dilapidated as to doors and windows, and is a fearfully cold house to
inhabit even in September, having, unlike most old houses, ridiculously
small fireplaces, which seem to have been always there. I slept in the
west wing, the only spare bedroom, big as the house is. I have known
1 Compare Dr. Dillon's book, "The Eclipse of Russia."
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330 Kitchener "Such a Stern Man" [1899
Sutton Place as long ago as the year 1855, when it was occupied by
my cousins, the Lefevres. In those days there was a Catholic chapel
in the east wing to which we used to be sent on Sundays from West
Horsley. The east wing was then uninhabited, a melancholy romantic
vacancy with a great staircase, hung with family portraits mouldering
on the walls. The chapel was in an upper room used for mass on
Sundays, according to an old endowment. Now the wing has been
restored and is occupied and the chapel placed elsewhere.
" 2gth Sept, — Back to London. Lady Lytton tells me that Kitchener
is a great favourite at Court. She was with the Queen and Kitchener
when they went to Natley Hospital, and was impressed with Kitchener's
manner to the wounded soldiers. * What these Royal personages ad-
mire,* she said, * is that he is such a stem man.'
" 20th Sept, — My cousin, Gerald Henry Blunt and his wife (she is
General Gordon's niece and sister to Colonel Bill Gordon) is here at
Newbuildings to dine and sleep, and I have heard from her the whole
story of the digging up of the Mahdi at first hand, or rather, as her
brother told it her. * Bill,' she said, ' was entrusted with the bombard-
ment of the tomb from the gunboat on the river during the battle of
Omdurman, and after it he was ordered to blow up the ruined remains
of the dome, as being already shattered and unsafe. This he did, but
it was no part of his orders to interfere with the body of the Mahdi.
It was left untouched under the ruins until Kitchener's return from
Fashoda, when Kitchener had it dug up and thrown into the river.
Bill was not present at this, nor was the job assigned to him, but Kitch-
ener and most of his staff were present, and Kitchener ordered the
head to be kept, intending to send it to the College of Surgeons, as the
head was a very large and remarkable one. It was sent on board the
steamer in a kerosene tin and taken down to Cairo, but was never in
Bill's charge, and he disapproved of the whole business. Eventually
when the scandal was made about it, the head was entrusted to two
English officers to take up the river again to Wady Haifa.' These re-
ported that they 'buried it at night, somewhere in the desert,' they
don't know where, so very possibly D 's account of its having been
* put behind the fire ' is correct. Mrs. Gerald Blunt thanked me pro-
fusely for the letter I had written to the * Daily News * in her brother's
defence, and said that Bill considered that Kitchener had treated him
unfairly in the affair. They had all made a scapegoat of him because
he did not stand in with them in certain not very straightforward
things. She is a nice, cheerful little woman, enthusiastic about her
* Uncle Charlie,' and not at all conventional about the military nonsense
of the day.
" 30^ A Sept, — To the Hoo, where I found a family party. Hampden
and his wife, and sons and daughters. Nothing is talked of but the
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Boer war. I notice that Harry, who was quite moderate about it when
he first came home from Australia, has now imbibed all the violent
Liberal-Unionist views regarding it. His eldest son is ordered to the
war, and the younger ones talked loudly about 'exterminating the
Boers.' We expect hourly now to hear of guns gone oflF on the
frontier.
** 2nd Oct. — Back to Newbuildings. The 'Qironicle' is running
a new red herring to-day, and has proposed sending the Duke of Devon-
shire out to South Africa, of all men in the world, to arrange a peace.
They are ready, however, to follow every false scent thrown in their
way. The Government's present plan is to try and make people think
they don't want war, and don't want to wipe out Majuba, and don't
want to annex the Transvaal. We shall see when it is over. If, after
a successful campaign, the Transvaal is not annexed, and Milner is not
made a peer, they may claim not to have intended it ; but both these
things will happen.
" yth Oct, — We have been expecting the Boers to advance on Natal
all the week, but something has delayed them. Perhaps the abortive
attempt by the Queen of Holland to intervene with our Queen. The
Boers seem to be losing their chance by this delay, but I fancy old
Kruger knows what he is about. He has, I think, to consult his friends
in Europe, at Berlin and elsewhere, before each important move. He
has managed to get the whole sympathy of the Continent with him,
indeed, of the whole world except ourselves and the Americans. These
last are backing us, as we badked them in their iniquity against the
Filipinos. The Transvaal Committee, too, in Manchester, has been
telegraphing absurd messages to Kruger, telling him that the Duke of
Devonshire may be trusted. If this has at all influenced the old man,
the Transvaal Committee deserves hanging, for the delay of the week
may cost him dear.
" gth Oct, — The men at the Clubs now mock at Kruger, saying he
won't fight, never meant to fight, and the rest. Reginald Carew, whom
I met at the Travellers, talked in this sense. He leaves for South
Africa with BuUer's staff on Saturday, but I told him not to be dis-
couraged, that the Boers would certainly not cave in. He thinks they
have lost what chance they had by waiting. Perhaps so. Still they
will fight." [N.B. This was General Pole Carew, who went on BuU-
er's Staff. I remember him lamenting his bad luck in the belief he had
that what little fighting there might be would have been over long be-
fore Buller's arrival. He distinguished himself during the war prin-
cipally, I think, as being the first to bum down the Boer farms. He
is a connection of mine through the Glanvilles. I have known him in
India when he was Lytton's A.D.C. It had been arranged at that time
that he was to go with me as representing Lytton on the journey we
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332 Dr. Budge on the Horse in Egypt [1899
proposed taking that year in Arabia, but which Cavagnari's death at
Kabul and Lytton's recall from India prevented. (See ' India under
Ripon.')]
" loth Oct. — The streets are placarded with the Boer ultimatum, so
I hope the end has come.
" To the British Museum with Cockerell, and saw Dr. Budge, of the
Egyptian Department. He gave us a deal of information about the
Hyksos and Assyrians in connection with Horse History. But all these
authorities differ so much from each other in what they tell you, that
one cannot have much confidence in their knowledge. As Huxley said,
it is still all * guess work.'
" I2th Oct, — Dined with Sibell and George, and Lady Windsor in
Park Lane, and went with them to see ' King John * at Her Majesty's
theatre, an egregious performance. I never cared about ' King John,'
and, as acted by Tree, it was a violent piece of ranting. George, with
whom I walked home after it, told me that Tree had chosen the play
as being full of Jingo tags and no Popery talk. But the audience was
too dull to seize the points.
" We talked much about the war, which is declared to-day. George's
brother Guy is on White's Staff at Ladysmith, and he expects them to
advance. White's orders from England have been generally to stand
on the defensive, but George is sure he will not remain quiet, and ' of
course we must leave all liberty to the men on the spot.' Baden Powell
is at Mafeking, and there will be fighting there. He told me a good
story of a certain J , who is notorious for keeping clear of danger.
He has just telegraphed to his wife from Kimberley, seven hundred
miles away from Mafeking, * War declared. Mafeking will be at-
tacked by Boers to-morrow — probably destroyed. No cause for anx-
iety.' About the general prospects of the war, George still believes in
the theory that Kruger is ' bluffing,' and that after a bit of a fight he
will knock imder to BuUer and make terms, otherwise he thinks it will
be a very long and tough job. He says that the Cabinet would really
have come to an arrangement with Kruger but for the bitterness of the
feeling against Chamberlain. There was a moment when they would
have accepted terms which, while giving Chamberlain an appearance
of a diplomatic success, would have left the real advantage to Kruger.
Kruger, he thinks, ought to have accepted the proposal of inquiry and
discussion, have agreed to go himself to Cape Town, and then have
delayed and put off till everybody was tired of it. He had himself
heard Chamberlain say when they expected such acceptance by Kruger,
' It seems my failure has been dianged into a paan/ Now, however,
there is no way but to fight it out. I told him I, too, was glad it was to
be so. My chief fear had been lest the Boers should be jockeyed out
of their independence without fighting. Besides, I look upon the war
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as perhaps the first nail driven into the coffin of the British Empire.
I believe that if the Boers can hold out six months Europe will inter-
vene.
" 17th Oct. — In South Africa the Boers are advancing steadily
southward, and have invested Mafeking and Kimberley. Their plan
is doubtless to get the Dutch in Cape Colony to rise and join them. It
seems their best chance. Buller went oflF on Saturday to take com-
mand of the British Army. They gave him what is called a * send
oflF ' at Southampton by crying a bogus victory in .the streets.
" Swinburne has published a ridiculous sonnet in favour of the war,
and Kipling has also been in the ' Times.' My ' Satan Absolved '
must stand for poetry on the other side. I got an advance copy of it
to-day.
'' igth Oct. — Newbuildings. Hampden and Neville are here. Much
argument about the Transvaal war. Hampden very fierce in defence
of the Government. We shot to-day, Mark Napier joining us as
fourth gun. Violent discussions again in the evening, Mark maintain-
ing that, while the English officers are good, the rank and file are
worthless, and that in a long campaign the English regiments would
go to pieces; Hampden annoyed, as having a son in the army. But
all ended pleasantly.
"21J/ Oct. — The Boers have been beaten in an attack they have
made upon White's Camp. George had the happy task in Parliament,
as Under-Secretary for War, of announcing the victory.
" 23rd Oct. — More victories. The * Chronicle,' after championing
the Boer cause all the summer, has now gone clean round, and shouts
triumph with the rest. It is a dastardly world.
" 27th Oct. — To London. People are not so pleased now with the
war in Natal, as, in spite of the reported victories at Glencoe and
Elandslaagte, Dundee has had to be evacuated, the guns and wounded
being left behind. They say Ladysmith will now be invested. Guy
Wyndham is there, with White's staff in the threatened position.
" Tgith Oct. — Herbert Spencer has written again about ' Satan Ab-
solved.' He is disappointed at my not having stuck to his idea in the
poem, but on the whole he approves. ' Unquestionably,' he says, ' Sa-
tan's description of man and his doings is given with great power, and
ought to bring to their senses millions of hypocrites who profess the
current religion. I wish you would emphasize more strongly the gigan-
tic lie daily enacted, the contrast between the Christian professions and
the Pagan actions, and the perpetual insult to One they call Omniscient
in thinking they can compound for atrocious deeds by laudatory words.'
" 1st Nov. — News of a great defeat of the British army before
Ladysmith. Two of Her Majesty's best regiments, the Royal Dublin
and the Gloucester, laid down their arms to the Boers^ 2,000 men of our
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334 Harcourfs Opinion of Rhodes [^899
most veteran troops. There seems now a chance of the whole British
army capitulating before BuUer and his men can relieve them from
England. Letters from old Watts and Kegan Paul, both in sympathy
about * Satan Absolved.'
" 2nd Nov. — To Malwood with Anne and stopped to lunch. After
it, old Sir William took me into his smoking room, and we talked over
the whole South African case. The old man is, I think, secretly just
as pleased as I am with the success of the Boers, though, when I said
I should like to see the Boers established in Cape Town, he protested
he could not go with me as far as that. However, he spoke strongly
enough, and told me a number of most interesting things about Rhodes
and Milner. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1893,
Rhodes came to him about his railway project and humbugged him
not a little. Sir William showed me a map on which Rhodes had
marked his schemes, and he came again, when he was in England after
the Raid, ' to face the music' Sir William says he is an astonishing
rogue and liar, but occasionally blurted out truths other rogues would
hide, and he had boasted how he bought up everybody by putting them
into good things on the Stock Exchange. He said that, though he,
Rhodes, was certainly privy to the projected revolution at Johannes-
burg, he did not think he knew precisely of the Jameson Raid. The
reason the Outlanders at the last moment would not rise was that they
found out that Jameson intended to hoist the British Flag, and that did
not suit them. They wanted to continue the Republic and run it them-
selves. As to Milner, Sir William said he was certain he was sent out
on purpose to pick a quarrel with Kruger. He had seen a great deal of
Milner while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Milner came to
wish him good-bye — and he had told him he knew why he was goii%.
He knew, too, that Milner had told Lady Cowper at Panshanger before
he left for the Cape, ' If I come back without having made war I shall
consider my mission has failed.' Milner was an enthusiastic Jingo, but
knew nothing of Statesmanship. Sir William also told me he had seen
a good deal this year of Cromer, and had been charmed with him. He
had found Cromer very moderate, hating Rhodes and hating Kitchener,
and doing his best to keep them within bounds. He told me that if the
Liberal Government had remained another fortnight in office they would
have made Redvers BuUer Commander-in-Chief, instead of Wolseley.
Altogether my visit was a most interesting one. I wish I could remem-
ber a tithe of what he told me.
" 3rd Nov, — A violent wind and rain, but we are snug here in our
wood. Ladysmith is invested and isolated. There are reports of an-
other defeat of White. I hope nothing will happen to Guy.
" lotk Nov. — There is a severe article on ' Satan Absolved ' in the
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'Chronicle' quoting Newman, and complaining of my profanity. I
have nice letters, however, from York Powell and Mallock.
" 20th Nov. — At Inchmery. The Belgian Minister, who was here
yesterday, tells me the Queen of Holland wrote to Queen Victoria to
beg her to make peace with the Transvaal, as so many of her subjects
were engaged in it. He says the Queen did not like the use of the
word * subjects,' and did not answer the letter. He considers that the
war, as far as it has gone, has much damaged England's prestige
abroad. It has shown people specially that English officers, though
brave, are without science. They all play too much instead of learning
their work. He has been nineteen years in England, and is an An-
glophile, but like all the rest he disapproves this war, and thinks it will
result badly for us, even if in the end successful. We have suffered
defeats which will encourage our enemies next time they quarrel with
us.
" 23rd Nov, — Fernycrof t is shut up for the winter, and I have gone to
Newbuildings, and am to start for Eg3rpt on Wednesday. Fernycroft
stripped of its leaves looks melancholy enough, and liie thought of
Egypt with its birds and butterflies is irresistible.
" They are making an immense fuss in the papers about the Emperor
William's visit to Windsor. He has come in spite of the disgust of
his own people, who are furious against us on account of the Boer
war. But I fancy he knows his own game, and hating us at heart has
come to spy out the nakedness of the land with a fresh military eye.
Our newspaper people, however, would go down on their bellies to him
and lick his feet if they were allowed.
"24/A Nov, — To Wotton to dine and sleep. They have fought a
new battle in South Africa, and another in the Soudan, and announced
them as two British victories — victories I suspect to order for the
German Emperor's benefit. The South African one seems nothing
much to boast of besides 200 of our men lost, mostly of the Guards.
The other is probably less bogus. Dear old Evelyn still sticks relig-
iously to his political principles with me. We are the last of the anti-
imperialist Conservatives.
" My poem is getting fearfully maltreated in the newspapers where
I have no friend, as it attacks the country and Christianity alike, and
what is worst, the newspapers themselves. This, however, was to be
expected, and it is not the first time I have had the world on my back.
" 2Sth Nov. — Back to Newbuildings and shot rabbits with Neville.
I am closing my accounts of all kinds for the year, and shut up this
journal in no sanguine mood of having anything happier to relate in
the diaries of another year. The only thing I love now is my cat, and
I am obliged, alas! to leave it behind."
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CHAPTER XV
LAST YEAR OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
" 15* Dec. — On board the Messageries ship Niger off Corsica on
my way to Egypt, having for the twentieth time shaken the dust of
Europe from my feet. The day I started, Tuesday morning, I lunched
with George Wyndham. He gave me the latest news of the war. They
hope at the War Office to relieve Ladysmith in the course of the next
eight days, but not without battles, one or two. They acknowledge
now that the Boers are immensely stronger than they thought, that
they are fighting according to the latest new scientific rules, and are
armed with the newest of new weapons — they are officered in a large
measure by Germans, and are holding their own determinedly. George
does not make too much of the latest victories, Belmont and Graspan.
But it seems to be part of the Boer tactics to invite attack on strong
positions, and to hold these as long as they can inflict loss on their en-
emies — then at the last moment to run, so that, although the position
is taken, the victor suffers most, and the Boers reassembling at a pre-
concerted rendezvous are not much the worse for their defeat. * We
could not let our men act like this,' said George, ' for if they once began
to run there would be no stopping them.' So he by no means considers
the matter over, sanguine as he naturally is. Guy Wyndham is still
shut up with White at Ladysmith — and he showed me a most interest-
ing letter from him written a month ago, immediately after the defeat
of Nicholson's Nek, or whatever it is they call it. The letter described
excellently an attack in three columns delivered by White, all of which
failed in the presence of superior numbers, and it seemed to suggest of
superior generalship. Guy had been with a detachment of a few hun-
dred men pushed forward into an exposed situation from which it was
more by luck than skill that they managed to extricate themselves.
One of the officers had suddenly observed that the rest of the column
seemed to be in retreat, and after pooh-poohing him at first they ob-
served it too, and Guy volunteered to ride across the open hill under a
heavy fire to ascertain the truth. This he did and discovered that the
General in command had entirely forgotten the detachment, and sent
it no order of retreat with the rest. So Guy had to ride back over the
same rough ground with bullets and shells striking the earth all about
him. The detachment was not brought in without considerable loss.
3d6
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The letter, very simply written, gave a powerful picture of the hap-
hazard character of modem warfare, and of the extreme helplessness
of the units of an army while in action. The letter said nothing of the
surrender of the third column, which was perhaps not known at the
time by the writer, or it may have been purposdy omitted, for what
George showed me was a typewritten copy of the letter made for family
reading. He was going down with it to his mother at Qouds in the
afternoon, where there is naturally a great anxiety. Of the victory in
the Soudan, and the death of the Khalifa, he seemed to admit that it,
like Methuen's victories, had been timed to coincide with the Emperor
William's visit to Windsor, just as the Dundee victory was for the
Parliamentary vote. Personally, George was in the highest spirits,
amply consoled for his disappointment at his not getting the Foreign
Office instead of the War Office last summer.
" I have been reading Kegan Paul's Memoirs, which are extremely
interesting. His description of his first school at Ilminster might stand
for my own experience at Twyford, a mere hell upon earth — and I
notice that the Ilminster master had been a Twyford boy, under Bed-
ford, whom I remember as a very old man living on in retirement, near
the school, when I first went there in 1847. The caning cupboards, on
either side the head master^s throne at Ilminster, were clearly modelled
on the Twyford ones. I received a letter only the day before I left
home from old Roberts who used to cane me in them, begging piteously
for pheasants to eat in his old age. Now I am reading Aubrey De
Vere's Memoirs. The two books are much on the same lines, and both
interest me greatly, recalling memories of people I have known, and
phases of thought gone through. Nevertheless Kegan Paul's is by far
the best, being simpler and less literary. De Vere bores one a little
with his poems, and his explanations of them. I remember him well
when we lived at Mortlake for a year in 1853. He used to come and
see my mother while he was staying with the Taylors at Shene. Mrs.
Cameron was another of his friends, but Taylor was the central figure.
For Taylor, Mrs. Cameron affected a great devotion, and had a portrait
of him by Watts hung in a recess of her drawing-room before which a
lamp continually burned. De Vere posed as a poet, and we children
thought him a bore. All the same I have ^ very high respect
for him now. An homme de bien, if ever one was in the world.
Many years later, I came into communication with him regarding the
letters of ' Proteus and Amadeus,' which he edited at Newman's sugges-
tion. At one time Newman had almost consented himself to do the
editing, for Dr. Meynell, the * Amadeus ' of the letters, was much at
Edgbaston just then. But for one reason or another the old man
changed his mind, and De Vere undertook the thing for him and wrote
the preface.
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338 A Recollection of Carditud Newman [1899
" It was in connection with this that, in 1876 or 1877, I went to
Edgbaston and stayed three days at the Oratory. I do not remember
if at that time I kept a journal. I think not — and I may as well write
here my recollection of the visit. I had stopped at Edgbaston on my
way back from the west of Ireland, where I had been staying with La-
primaudaye at Treenlawr, and I had caught a toothache fishing on the
Lough which worried me greatly, and I remember distinctly feeling
as I knocked at the door that I should be thus hors de combed at the
moment of my coming to consult the great man. Nevertheless my
distress was vain, for I was shown up to him at once, and, at the instant
of touching his hand when he received me, my pains vanished, nor did
they return while I was staying in the house. Newman's was a won-
derful hand, soft, nervous, emotional, electric ; and I felt that a miracle
had been wrought. I told Father Ryder of it at the time, but he charged
me that I should tell no man, and I said no word of it to the Saint
himself. Newman, though he knew well that I had come to consult
him for the good of my soul, and though I had much conversation in-
directly with him upon spiritual things, did not attempt to argue out
any of the fundamental principles of religious thought, and sought to
influence me rather through the heart by his great kindness, and by the
confidence with which I was admitted to all the life of the community.
It was a touching sight, indeed, to see the old man taking his turn with
the rest to wait on us at table in the Refectory — and living his simple
life of piety and cheerful unselfishness. The lives of monks and nuns
are alone in some accordance with the life of Jesus. All the rest of
Christianity is an imposture and an impudent negation of Christ.
'* 5/A Dec. — Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd after nearly two years' ab-
sence. At Alexandria I had to wait some hours, and spent them in the
company of Hewatt and his family at Ramleh. I found the Hewatts,
to my surprise, very anti-Jingo about the war. There has been another
' victory ' on the Modder — and another heavy loss of officers and men.
I am sorry to see among the killed one of Mrs. Earle's two ' splendid
sons,' about whom she wrote to me a month ago. She did not deserve
this misfortune, for she was very humane in her ideas, and hated sol-
diering and all its ways.
" Anne met me at Cairo, and we went on home at once, having the
good luck to travel in the same carriage with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu.
Of all Easterns, perhaps I might say of all men, my dearest friend,
Mohammed Abdu, after having been imprisoned for his Liberal opin-
ions, and exiled by the Anglo-Khedivial restoration of 1882, has grad-
ually become recognized for what he is, by far the ablest and most
honest man in Egypt — and they have made him our Grand Mufti, the
highest religious authority in the vice kingdom. I gave him an acre
of land two years ago, and he has built himself a country house on it,
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and so is now our nearest neighbour. When we said good-bye on my
leaving Egypt last I little thought we should meet again.
"6th Dec. — Coming back here is like rising again from the dead.
Everybody connected with the place clearly took it for granted I should
be seen in it no more, and acted on the supposition. Nothing very bad
has been done, and some changes are for the better, but still they have
been made. My gazelles have been sent to the Zoological Garden,
some of the horses have been sold, the house has been re-arranged.
I feel like a guest in it — the revenant — the ghost who has returned.
Perhaps it is all the more delightful, for the garden is in splendid leaf,
and the trees never had a thicker shade in a more brilliant sunshine.
Encroachments in the way of new wells and cultivated fields have been
made all round us in the desert, and we are already almost completely
cut off from the open plain. But it is the least of the evils that threat-
ened us four years ago. First the sewage farm, and then the building
operations. So that the new com fields may be looked upon as a com-
parative blessing in an age of unscrupulous progress.
" IS^A Dec, — Two new Boer victories, or rather British defeats.
One at Stormberg, the other at Sp)rtfontein. People will soon be get-
ting angry in London, and perhaps leave off some of their music hall
songs. There is a ridiculous swaggering one in the papers, promising
Uncle Paul to dine with him on Christmas Day. It reminds me of the
Paris cry, ' a Berlin,' which became historic.
THE NEW PATRIOTIC SONG
Now Sung at the Music Halls and Theatres with immtnse success.
KRUGER'S DINNER PARTY; Dec. 7, 1899
or,
We'll be There.
Written by Fred C. Smale. Composed by Geo. Le Brunn.
Oh, Uncle's giving a party and he's asked us all to come.
We'll be there!
We're marching up from Durban town, behind the fife and drum
And we'll be there !
There's some from Dublin City, there's some from out the West,
The Devon lads "be vitty," there's Gordons ¥ath the rest;
Oh, Uncle, don't you trouble, there is time enough to spare —
We'll be there!
(Chorus) So please you, Uncle Paul, light the Lantern in the Hall
(We know we're welcome as the flow'rs in May),
Just keep 4he pudding hot for the lively little lot
Who are coming up to dinner Christmas Day.
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340 The Boer War [1899
We've got some little sailor men, we thought you wouldn't mind,
The/11 be there!
We are bringing them to see our Uncle Paul so good and kind.
They'll be there!
They have come across the ocean, they would like some tea and btms,
Then they'll just give you a notion how they work their little guns.
No, Uncle, dear, they are not at sea — they travel everywhere.
They'll be there!
(Qiorus) So please you. Uncle Paul, just arrange a little ball
(They're having one or two upon the way) ;
Majuba some went through, and they want to speak to you.
So they're coming up to dinner Chrismas Day.
Pretoria's a place we've often wanted for to see.
We'll be there!
The air with us, there is no doubt, will splendidly agree.
We'll be there!
Perhaps I may just mention, we are coming up in style.
And with the firm intention of remaining for a while;
Still, Uncle, don't you worry, for mother's paid the fare.
We'll be there!
(Chorus) So please you. Uncle Paul, see that there's enough for all
There's fifty thousand Tommies on the way,
And somewhere in a bag they have got a little flag
To stick up in the pudding Christmas Day !
KEITH, PROWSE and CO., Cheapsidc, RC
[N;.B. Several of our regiments did dine with Uncle Paul that
Christmas Day, but it was as prisoners of war.]
" A torrent of newspaper abuse has fallen on my ' Satan Absolved.'
The first notices were fairly moderate, but as the war has gone more
and more against our Army, they have become more and more vindic-
tive. They b^an by admitting that the poetry had some eloquence;
then it was found clever, but vulgar; then blasphemous, vulgar, and
stupid. Now the condemnation is extended to all my poems. It has
been discovered that the ' Songs of Proteus ' were a plagiarism on
Meredith's * Modem Love ' : and that in the rest of my works I have
been ever sinking deeper in the mire.
" 17/A Dec. — The third and main British army is badly beaten on the
.Tugela River. MacDonald (John Murray MacDonald), Anne's cousin
by marriage, who is staying with us, declares he shall go off himself to
fight. He is a mild semi- Jingo Radical of the school that believes the
British Empire has a divine mission to subdue and occupy the waste
places of the earth. I have been arguing the Boer case with him for
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i899] The Military View of It 341
the last ten days. To me it is incredible how any reasonable creature
should believe such trash. His wife and her niece Irene Noel are
generally on my side. But to-day when I say, * Now we ought to make
peace with the Boers ' they are all against me. Even Anne thinks that
the rights of the blood feud forbid that. Yet what absurdity! War,
when it is a war of aggression, as they all admit that this is, is mere
murder, and though it is humiliating to make peace on a defeat, it can't
be surely right to go on.
** As to the wisdom of persisting, the Boers are really better soldiers
than ours. We had a few good regiments to begin with, but they are
pretty well used up now, and the rest is of a feeble kind. Our army,
if it can fight, cannot march, and has to stick to the lines of railway.
Our superior numbers are consequently of little advantage. The Boers
are making a splendid fight for their freedom, and are winning all
along the line. Every honest man, English or not, ought to rejoice.
Instead of this, we English are in league with the Americans, we, who
were the two peoples who have posed as champions of freedom in the
world, to subdue two small, weak nations, the Boers and the Filipinos,
fighting for their independence, and not a word of disapproval is heard
amongst us.
" Young Walter Gaisf ord, Talbot's A.D.C., was here the other day,
lamenting that the Khalifa and his dervishes had all been killed, so
that there would be nobody left to shoot, he complained, even in the
Soudan. * There is hope, however, that, when the Boers are polished
off, we may go on to a war with Abyssinia when more sport will be to
be had.' This is the way our young fellows look at war (' a high old
rabbit shoot'). It is good for them and the world that they have at
last met their match. War will be unpopular enough in England soon
if it goes on as at present, and there will be a chance then for the weak
nations to remain unmolested.
"20th Dec, — Prince Aziz was here yesterday and told me things
that were interesting. He was once a lieutenant in the i6th Lancers,
and talks intelligently about the war. Gatacre, he says, was always a
fool, violent and abusive to the natives in India. He had been certain
he would get into trouble when it came to fighting. The Prince holds
the British Army cheap. They would never have been able to get to
Omdurman but for the Egyptian troops, who did all the work and all
the fighting, and in South Africa they were inferior in everything to
the Boers. Things have come to a pretty pass when this fat Eg3rptian
Prince can hold such opinions. But they are perfectly justified. Kitch-
ener, as a last hope of saving the situation, has been named Chief of
the Staff to Roberts, and is to start at once for the Cape. The Dutch
in Cape Colony are in revolt. The English newspapers say there has
not been such a position of things since the Indian Mutiny. It is
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342 Kitchener Sent to South Africa [1899
thought old Roberts, who is popular with our rank-and-file, will be able
to restore confidence. But he is too old for serious work, and they
have shoved Kitchener forward to the real command. I don't believe
either of them is a bit better than our beaten Generals,. I had long
talks with Roberts in India years ago, and he gave me a poor notion
of his intelligence, good old fellow as he is. As for Kitchener, he
knows nothing of European war, and his Soudanese experience will
serve him little. He has the curse on him of the Mahdi's head, and
deserves to fail. There is a paragraph in the papers this week giving
an account of the Khalifa's end, and how courageously he met it. This
man has been uniformly represented as a contemptible coward. Yet
he met death as nobly as any of Plutarch's heroes.
**25th Dec, — Christmas Day. Kitchener has left Egypt. Though
he sailed from Alexandria he had not the grace to go to Montaza, where
the Khedive was, to bid him good-bye. Yet he has been drawing
i6,ooo a year latterly from the Egyptian Treasury, and high pay for
the last fifteen years. A bearer of the white man's burden at i6,ooo a
yearl
" 2gth Dec, — I have received a nice letter from old Herbert Spencer
about the attacks made on my poem by the critics, and saying he thinks
I was probably right when I told him I thought it would need a for-
eign army landed on our shores to bring us quite to our sober senses.
There is at present a lull in the South African fighting, the Boers wait-
ing to be attacked again and the English not having got their second
wind.
" Margaret Talbot came to-day and spent the afternoon. Her hus-
band is in command here of the English garrison, and is, of course,
much grieved at the way the Boer War is going. He would like to be
there, but at the same time would dread the responsibility of failure
where so many others have failed. She described Kitchener's de-
parture. He lyas only half an hour at Cairo — the time between one
train and another, and said hardly a word to anyone. No one here
regrets him, for he has made no friends.
" 31st Dec, — The last year of the 1800's ends disastrously for Eng-
land, or rather for the British Empire. For England can only gain by
the break-up of that imposture. I think now there really is some chance
of such a consummation, for we are sending the whole of our armed
force into South Africa, where it is likely to become engulfed, and we
have got the whole sentiment of the world, civilized and uncivilized,
against us.
Thou hast deserved men's hatred — they shall hate thee;
Thou hast deserved men's fear — their fear shall kill;
Thou hast thy foot upon the weak, the weakest
With his armed head shall bite thee on the heel.
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iQOoJ Kaiser WUhelm's Rescript 343
" Percy W)mdham writes : ' In this terrible straggle in South Africa
we see a picture in little of what will be the close of the present dis-
pensation, to use the language of those who believe in prophecy, when
the survivors of Teutonic blood will fight for the mastery of the world
— in that struggle the Dutch, South African or Native, will have a
look in/
"Two young British officers were here this afternoon. They are
both agog to join the fighting, looking at the whole thing entirely from
the professional point of view. * If we are not in this show,' they said,
emphatically, ' we may as well hang up our hats.'
" 1st Jan,, 1900. — The Emperor William, the papers say, has issued
a rescript, ordaining that the new Christian Century is to begin in Ger-
many to-day. This, if trae, goes one better than Carlyle's Emperor,
who was super grammaticam, I find the Moslem centuries go down to
the end of the hundreds, and begin again with the year one.
" Mohammed Abdu, our Mufti, was here this afternoon. And to
him I read Herbert Spencer's letter, which immensely interested him,
and afterwards described to him my poem. He considers Spencer the
first of living philosophers, and has translated his book on Education
into Arabic. I also explained to his brother Hamouda my views of the
rights of animals, which was one absolutely new to him. Though on
reflection he said that it was strictly in accordance with the Koran and
Moslem teaching, which enjoins respect to animals, and even to inani-
mate objects. So that it is forbidden wantonly to deface so much as
a stone. In truth, it is Christianity that is really responsible for the
brutal attitude of modern man towards animals. No other religion that
can be called a religion tolerates it, but our Christian doctors have laid
down the atrocious doctrine that beasts and birds were made solely for
man's use and pleasure, and that he has no duties towards them. It is
only in the last hundred years that Europeans, having partly freed
themselves from Christian teaching, have begun to take a humaner
view. The doctrine of evolution has pushed it a bit forwarder, for
though it has injured the cause of savage or coloured man as having
equal rights with the white man, it has established our far away kinship
with the beasts, which was formerly denied. So that there are a few
amongst us who begin to doubt our right to bird and beast slaughter.
My own view is that wild birds and beasts who do no harm to man
have a right to be left in absolute peace. But that those whom we
help to breed by giving them protection may fairly pay a certain tribute,
just as our tame beasts are made to do, though the higher law would
be to let all live. We argue these things nightly at dinner.
" $th to 10th Jan. — We were occupied with a desert excursion to
within sight of Ismalia on the Suez Canal and back, our furthermost
point being a prominent dark brown rock, which stands some hundred
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344 The British Empire in Danger [1900
feet above the plain overlooking the Bitter Lake. From this point
we marched north north-west to the Sand-hills and the Wady Tvimey-
lat The following day, the 9th January, Anne and I made a long
camel trot of six hours across the gravel plain, crossing Wady Jaffra
to another conspicuous rock south of Belbeis, and so on the loth back
to Sheykh Obeyd. It was a pleasant excursion, but contains little worth
recording.
" loih Jan, — Mohammed Abdu was here to-day, and confirms to the
full the accounts of Kitchener's dealings with the Mahdi's head as I
gave it last summer in the ' Daily News,' especially as to Cromer's dis-
approval of it and his dislike of Kitchener. We agreed that at last
God's Providence was moved to anger against these abominations, and
that England's Empire would go the way of all the rest.
" There is a letter in the ' Times ' just come which I think caps every-
thing yet written for absurd bombast. Its author is old Reid, the naval
constructor, a former Gladstonian Radical, and still M.P. It shows to
what a pass of self-glorification we English have come, for the Radicals
are worse now than the extremest Tories, and I have had to write home
to tell them to cease sending me the * Daily Chronicle ' and the * Man-
chester Guardian,' and replace them with the * Daily Mail ' and * Morn-
ing Post.' The only London paper that speaks a word of sense is the
' Westminster Gazette.' Here is the concluding paragraph :
" ' May I add. Sir, that my thoughts search history in vain for any
spectacle of national heroism greater than, or equal to, that which Great
Britain and her truly noble colonies are presenting to the world at this
moment. The crafty and foreigner-aided enemy lies in our territory
and across our path, with shell guns on every available hill, and trenches
dug between; with barbed wire stretched to protect their cunningly de-
vised lairs, and cover spread to conceal their more or less rebellious
persons. Their power to deal out death and mutilation is their delight ;
their skill in doing so is their pride ; and it is known that the flag which
they most hate is the Union Jack, the very symbol of freedom and
equality throughout the world. They have done their level and their
unlevel best to slay our men and lower our flag on our own soil. They
are difficult to tackle, for they fight lurking, and fly alike from cold
steel and the open field. All that human heroism combined with ani-
mal cunning can perform they will do against us, and they will add to
these such prayers as even ignoble lips oft dare to address to the God of
battles. But have they alarmed us? Have they " frightened the isle
from its propriety? " Have they detached one colony from the mother-
land? Have they caused young or old, citizen or noble, poor or rich,
small or great, worldling or worshipful, in any part of this Imperial
Realm to shrink or hold back from the encounters, however deadly, to
which they have challenged us? No, Sir, there has sprung from every
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part of the Empire a flame of patriotism and of heroism so high that
the whole world is, so to speak, alight with it, and, depend upon it, while
we rejoice, the world wonders and admires.' " ^
N.B. The total Boer population thus described as menacing the
British Empire, with its 200,000,000 souls, is exactly that of Brighton.
" I5^A Jan, — I have been reading Mivart's article on the ' Continuity
of Catholicism,' which has raised a tempest against him. It is certainly
the most daring declaration ever made in articulo mortis, for poor
Mivart is, I believe, dying. If, forty years ago, I had found a Catholic
writer equally bold, I should have been saved from much infidelity, but
now it is too late. Mivart is clinging desperately to his faith, but ic is
at bottom an impossible thing to reconcile science with any form of
Christianity.
"21st Jan, — A letter in verse about * Satan Absolved,' from Sir
Wilfrid Lawson, which is bad verse but amusing : I
Bra)rton, 9th Jan. 1900
Your work on the Devil, dear Blunt, I have read. '
What a curious fancy to enter your head! I
The World, I admit, is as bad as can be;
But how hell make it better I scarcely can see.
I fancy if matters were right understood 1
There's a Spirit of bad and a spirit of good, I
They're continually fighting in battle array
Each pulling like mad in a different way.
The one is Jehovah, Jove, Lord, Names like these, ,
The other is the Devil as bad as you please. I
Then between these two powers comes man on the scene, I
Where he comes from there's no one can tell us, I ween ;
But still here he is with a body and soul *
Designed, I imagine, for filling some role.
His rudder is conscience by which he should steer.
But at present it seems to be quite out of gear.
But come, my dear Blunt, do not let us despair.
Even yet we may make something of him with care.
At present he is — you and I never flatter —
At present he is just as mad as a hatter.
His brain has undoubtedly met with a shock,
Which has sent him through Africa running amock.
The nobility, gentry, and clergy of course,
His madness by all in their power enforce,
And all in this country are cutting their capers
At the murders recorded each day in the papers.
Well, in trying my best to hunt these matters out
That the Devil is in it I haven't a doubt
Well, I will resist him, as long as I can,
1 " Times," 1900.
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346 Abdu on Dumb Anitnals [iQOO
And so do my best to emancipate man.
Some good yet we may see when there comes to the front
The excellent doctrine of Lawson and Blunt.
"28th Jan, (Sunday). — A long talk with Mohammed Abdu on the
whole subject of mankind and the dealings of the strong with the weak.
I find he is as pessimistic as myself. He has been reading the Towra,
the Old Testament Pentateuch, lately, and attributes the brutalities of
Christianity largely to its connecion with Judaism. As to the treatment
of dumb animals he quoted to me several of the Hawadith enjoinii^
kindness, and it is certain that wanton destruction of these is contrary
to the sentiment of Moslems. Wanton destruction is indeed peculiar
to Christendom. Abdu believes in no good future for the human race,
and I fear he has as little faith in Islam, Grand Mufti though he be, as
I have in the Catholic Church.
" BuUer has had another reverse before Ladysmith at Spion Kop.
This time it is General Warren who has suffered defeat. I am glad of
it. It was he that hanged the Bedouins for the Palmer affair after
Tel-el-Kebir. I have written to Leonard Courtney to say I will join
the ' Stop the War Committee,' and am sending £50. This though with
some qualms of conscience, for if the war goes on another six months
it really may smash up the British Empire.
" My once dearest friend Lothian is dead. What a grief this would
have been to me five-and-thirty years ago ! He was the lightest of all
light-hearted companions, yet serious too. We made our storm and
stress together at Frankfort when Darwinism was a novelty, and solved
the riddle of the universe together gazing at the stars. We have gone
different roads since then. He to lead an uneventful life of high and
various dignities in Scotland, I to adventure in what devious ways. It
is only casually that we have met for years.
" 2C)th Jan. — I have written the following in answer to one who had
criticized my * Satan Absolved ' on the ground that though splendid if
intended as a reductio ad absurdum of Christianity, it stopped short of i
accepting Nietsche's doctrine of Force. ' Of course the poem was a
reductio ad absurdum. The thing that seemed to me supremely in |
need of being shown ridiculous was the worship of humanity in any 1
form. I am not a disciple of Tolstoy. He believes in the possibility '
of improvement, in moral progress, and in a far away Christian civiliza- |
tion. I do not. At the same time I do not mock at Christian ideals. I
If Man were not the ludicrous, vicious ape he is, but were capable of I
being converted to a quiet, harmless life without thought for the morrow [
— or ambition or desire more than to praise God and enjoy himself in i
the sun like the lilies of the field, the world would be a very happy place, i
as it was before Man came to disturb it. But of course this will never !
I
i
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1900] Nietsche's Doctrine of Force 347
come to pass. It never even really began. That, however, is no reason
for adoring as you say you do Force even tempered by Fraud. There is
nothing in the smallest degree admirable in either. If it is true that
your worship of Force is to be the creed of the future, and very likely
it will be so, it is only another proof of the innate vulgarity of man.
Nietsche is an ass. The law of the strongest, as we see it in Modem
Civilization, is not the law of Nature, only the law of human nature,
which is a very different thing. The oak tree does not monopolize the
forest, nor are the flowers which grow there trash. If Nietsche had
been as many years as I have in the East he would not talk of the
Christian ideal as being a creed of a slave for slaves. He would know
it was far more truly the creed of the dervish, of the poor, happy vag-
rant who scorns property and scorns what we Europeans absurdly call
the " dignity of labour," and who is as free as the birds of the air. It
needs Oriental experience to understand this. The place for European
civilization is the Paris boulevard ; south of the Mediterranean a white
skin is only a form of leprosy, and from an aesthetic point of view you
might as well plant the New Forest with cabbages as have anything to
do with applying the doctrine of Force to the world at large.'
" Mivart has been formally excommunicated by Cardinal Vaughan.
It seems to me that if Catholics are really called upon to believe that
the first man was the Adam of the Garden of Eden, and that all the
books of the Old and New Testaments not merely ' contain Revelation
with no admixture of error,' but were also * written by the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost and have God for their Author,* we may abandon the
idea of any possible reconciliation between religion and science. Of
course one knew the thing was hopeless, but still there were many
Catholics, even priests, who pretended it was not.
"'I have had several more talks with Mohammed Abdu. He tells
me that several of the high English officials here make money in illicit
ways. He is, however, as little in favour of internationalizing Egypt
as I am, for that would merely be to exchange one wolf for a pack of
wolves. He is bitter against Cromer, whom otherwise he likes, for
having established nothing that can survive of indigenous Government
when the English Occupation ends — nothing, that is, that can be
counted on to work on Liberal and honest lines. There has been a
general proscription of the patriotic and enlightened element in the
country, and the men pushed forward have been those who had least
self-respect and could most surely be counted on for their pliancy.
" $th Feb, — Parliament has met, and the Queen's Speech has been
telegraphed. Pharaoh has hardened her heart, and declares that she
will, carry the war on to a successful end. Buller has, however, clearly
been badly beaten again at Spion Kop and Ladysmith must fall. The
famine in India is a new ' judgment of God ' upon the Empire, and.
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348 To Dillon on Irish Politics [1900
just as in old times, the stress of the punishment falls on the innocent.
There are three and a half millions of people now on daily relief. Yet
I suppose not a single official of all that have fattened upon India will
forgo a third of his income — or a fourth or a tenth part of it to feed
the people — this although they are subscribing and making the natives
subscribe to the South African War. It is the ' divine mission ' we are
carrying out of making the world happy I
" Osman Digna has been captured at last and brought in chains to
Cairo. ' A large crowd pressed forward eager to see the dark, long
face, brilliant eyes, large mouth, and long grey beard, of a frightened
and dignified old man who sat with chains round his sore ankles and
swollen, bare feet.' I quote ' Our own correspondent' This is how
the British Empire makes its 'Roman holiday'! But the hour of
vengeance is, I hope, now very near.
" %th Feb. — George Wyndham has made a very able speech in de-
fence of the War Office and his political fortune is made. I am glad of
this, though his principles in politics have been up to now abominable.
He is no Philistine at heart, and will be sobered both by the defeat of his
policy and his personal success, and may end as a great and large-minded
statesman. He was wise enough to confine his speech strictly to the
War Office, and did not attempt to explain the policy of the war: being
a subordinate of very short standing in the Government he will not be
held responsible, and people will only see in him what they most ap-
preciate, a very clever parliamentarian defending a bad party cause in
the best possible way. The only speech that was sound on the Op-
position side was Sir Robert Reed's, which stated the whole case against
the war fully and fairly.
" i/^th Feb. — I have written as follows to John Dillon in honour of
the reunion of the Irish Parliamentary Party :
Sheykh Obeyd, Feb. 14, xgoa
" Dear Dillon,
" I write to congratulate you and the rest of my old friends of
the Irish Parliamentary Party on the reunion of the Party, and your
resolution to be once more independent of English ones. You know
that for the last ten years I have held aloof from politics and have been
mute about Ireland. But I cannot help saying now how much I
S3rmpathize with you all. The moment certainly has come for a new
departure — for Ireland's one chance lies in the check given to our
English plan of a world-wide Empire which has been accepted equally
by both parties and which leaves no room anywhere for Nationalism.
I think, too, that the iniquity of the war we are carrying on in South
Africa, and which both Parties almost equally approve, should make it
intolerable for an honest man to remain any longer allied vrith either.
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1900] Trouble in the Soudan 349
I don't know which is the more despicable, the boasting Tory who made
the war openly for the fun of the thing and to fill his pockets, or the
Radical, who has allowed himself to be persuaded that he might bully
the Boers cheaply and in accordance with Liberal principles. At any
rate I am glad to see Ireland free from both of them. There was al-
ways to my mind a certain danger to her high ideal in her connection,
however temporary, with our ambitions. Imperialism is very contag-
ious, and Scotch, as well as English Radicalism, has been entirely per-
verted by it. I have often thought that the ' union of hearts ' we talked
so much about in 1887 might, if it had become a reality, have only led
to the perversion of Ireland too. It is best as it is — at least until we
English are humbled to entire sanity.
" I shall be glad if you will show this letter to Harrington and Healy
and Redmond, as well as to Davitt and O'Brien, as I intend it equally
for all. It is a great pleasure to me to be able to think of you fighting
once more well together for Liberty as in the days of our old cam-
paign."
" iSth Feb, — Cockerell arrived last night from London very keen
for sight-seeing, and to-day Evelyn also came ; he is strong for stopping
the war, and also approves of my letter to Dillon.
" Mohammed Abdu was here in the afternoon and told me the true
story of the military trouble at Khartoum. Kitchener has long been
hated by the Egyptian Officers, whom he has throughout ill-treated, al-
lowing the English Officers to behave arrogantly to them, and paying
no attention to their complaints. The Egyptian troops have been made
to do all the hard work, and have been given no credit, while the black
troops have been petted and spoiled. When things began to go badly
at the Cape Kitchener got alarmed, and tried to prevent any news of
the English defeats reaching the Soudan, but he could not hinder it
leaking through. Then fearing a revolt he ordered the ammunition to
be taken away on the pretence that it was old and would be renewed,
but the Soudanese regiments refused to give up the old till the new was
supplied ; the Egyptian Officers were suspected of encouraging the re-
fusal and some were arrested. In the middle of it all Kitchener was
recalled to go to South Africa, and the thing was patched up by Wingate
who is less unpopular, though it is not wholly settled yet. Abdu tells
me that the idea now is in the event of the Egyptian Question being
brought on by the European Powers to call in Turkish troops to replace
our English garrison. This would be a lesser evil than the advent of
French or Italian troops, which would only mean the Internationaliza-
tion of Egypt. Mohammed Abdu knows that it has been talked over
among the Ministers and with Lord Cromer. I am inclined to hope
that it may really end thus for there seems to be no chance of a simple
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350 Kimberley Relieved [1900
evacuation in favour of a native Egyptian Government. Abdu has a
good opinion of Cromer personally. But says there are a number of
shady things done by his subordinates.
" i6th Feb. — BuUer's third attack on the Boers and his attempt to
cross the Tugela has failed as abjectly as the other two, and we may
hear any day now of the fall of Ladysmith ; a final attempt I fancy to
capture a victory in view of the vote in Parliament for which it has
served its purpose, though later it turned into a defeat.
" 17th Feb.— To Cairo with Cockerell. The first time I have been
there this winter, after seventy-four days at Sheykh Obeyd, so that I
felt strange and naked in European dothes. On the road we met
Prince Aziz who talked with much intelligence about the management
of his property. These Khedivial Princes are all of them shrewd men
of business. He also gave us news of the relief of Kimberley, a tele-
gram having come last night. This will have the practical effect of
putting that sad villain Rhodes once more on the scene of the world's
intrigues. I am sorry for it.
" I called on various necessary people, including Margaret Talbot in
her new official house as the General's Lady, and on Cromer, who
talked to me for half an hour about Nile irrigation, the debts of the
fellahin, the famine in India, and such administrative subjects as he
talks best on. He is certainly a great man in his official way. We did
not touch on any dangerous matters, nor allude in any sort to past
differences. Personally I like him much. Amongst the plans he dis-
cussed with me was one in connection with the National Bank of ad-
vancing small sums of £5 and £10 to the fellahin at 9 per cent., to
enable them to get out of the hands of the Greek usurers, who charge
them thirty and forty per cent. This is precisely the scheme the
Nationalists of 1881 had, and its adoption by Cromer is another proof
of the foresight of those poor patriots whom we cannoned into silence.
With the single exception of constitutional government, I believe every
article now of the National Programme has been adopted by us.
" 24th Feb. — The MacDonalds and Irene, and her brother are gone
to Greece, after sta)ring here three months. She is an attractive child,
clever and pretty — and her brother, Byron, interesting, because quite
uneducated, with a good heart and much sense. Young Ward was
here yesterday, who is acting as correspondent to the ' Times.' He gave
us news that Roberts, having raised the siege of Kimberley, has now
got Kranje's army in such a position that it seems likely to surrender.
This is important, and I fear will rehabilitate Chamberlain and the
Rhodes gang. Lady Lytton writes to me after her waiting at Osborne :
' I enjoyed my three quiet weeks at Osborne, and the Queen is such
a splendid example of wisdom over the war and all the sorrow and
things that follow from it, and she always judges rightly without too
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igoo] MUner^s ''Equal Justice" 351
much emotion. . . . You say you wish they would stop the fighting.
Every one wishes it also, but we must get to Pretoria first, and be
able to get equal justice for all our people there, and for
which reason the war has been brought on England, and it
will be a very long business of years — so let us try and be
patient, and good will come out of it in the end. The spirit of wish-
ing to help is quite splendid everywhere in England, and the soldiers
must be allowed to do better than they have done as yet before they
stop fighting.' This no doubt is her Majesty's sentiment. Milner who
arranged the ' equal justice ' casus belli will now doubtless get his peer-
age. Sibell writes in the same strain about the unselfishness of the
war, and the noble qualities of all concerned. One might think it was
a crusade, instead of being the Stock Exchange swindle it is. The art
of governing the world has become the art of deceiving, not only the
people, but if possible one's own high-minded conscience.
" 1st March. — I went into Cairo with Cockerell, and learned the
relief of Ladysmith. Kronje capitulated a few days ago at Paardeburg,
and the Boer army has evacuated Natal, and seems to be concentrating
for a final stand on the Drakensburg line. One thing is satisfactory in
it, the release of Guy Wyndham from his captivity. There have been
debates in the House of Commons about Chamberlain's part of the
Raid. He now says that his white-washing of Rhodes after the Com-
mittee Report only concerned Rhodes' money transactions. I remem-
ber George telling me at the time (and he was in the thick of the plot)
that they had played a trick on the opposition in getting Harcourt and
the rest of them to agree to the Report on an understanding that Rhodes
was to be thrown over, and also, if I remember rightly, in forcing
Chamberlain's hand to support Rhodes. This one thing is certain,
Rhodes remained, and is still a Privy Councillor.
" 5th March. — I have been very busy getting ready for our long
intended pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. Anne is unable to go as Judith
has written hurrying her departure for the expected baby, but Cock-
erell goes with me and my nurse. Miss Lawrence. We are to start
on the 7th, and take steamer to Tor on the 8th, and be met there by
our camels.
" 6th March. — Evelyn spent the day with us having come to Egypt
with his daughters. He is in trouble having just received a telegram
from his son to say that he has joined the Imperial Yeomanry and is
going to South Africa. It is the smart thing to do just now, and all
the world is mad for fighting.
*'7th March. — To Suez by train, a hot, disagreeable journey, and
put up at the ' Bel Air,' next the station. Suez full of pilgrims, the
streets crowded and gay.
"Sth March. — Occupied in taking our places by the Khedivial
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352 Wreck of the ''Chihin^' [1900
steamer for Tor, and getting passports for Suliman and Hassan at
the Moudirieh. The people there very friendly, as the Governor was
formerly an Arabist and the Katib had been secretary to Mahmoud
Fehmy. The place was being besieged by pilgrims come for their
passports, whidi cost them 150 piastres, to the Hedjaz. In the after-
noon went on board the Chibine with the agent Btyts, whom I re-
member twenty years ago at Jeddah, where he had a house of business
with one Wild. He did what he could to make us comfortable, but
the Chibine is crowded with pilgrims, 350 of them, they say.
" ^h March, — I went to my berth early and woke about half-past
one, and opened the cabin window as it was very hot below, and
so was l3ring awake thinking over the lapse of years since I was
last at Mount Sinai and the poor issue of our short lives, when I felt
as it were a blow received by the vessel, and immediately after a
second blow. At the first moment I thought it was an earthquake
shock — we had had one last Tuesday at Sheykh Obeyd — and called
out to Cockerel, who shared my cabin„ to that effect ; but looking out of
the window I saw a line of breakers close before us on the port side,
and the ship began to be knocked about by the waves. It was very
dark, but the breakers were plain enough, and I said to Cockerel, ^ No.
We are on a Coral Reef.' I had not undressed and had nothing but
my shoes to put on to be ready for all events. And I went to Miss
Lawrence's cabin and told her to get up and dress as we were aground.
Then on Cockerel's confirming what had happened I went on the
upper deck where Suliman and Hassan were, and got the life-belt
I always carry out of the bullock trunk in which it was and put it
on Miss Lawrence. She was not at all frightened, nor indeed was
anybody else as far as I know — though the Pilgrims began reciting
their prayers aloud. The wind was blowing pretty strong, and I could
make out the line of the shore not far off and the breakers, though
the night was dark. There did not seem to be any immediate danger,
but we prepared ourselves for whatever might happen, and in the
darkness, of course, there was room to imagine the worst. I did not
stay long, however, on deck, but after some talk with Suliman went
below and lay down again, for it was clear there was nothing to be
done till daylight. I had looked at my watch as soon as the vessel
struck, and found it was seven minutes past three. Cockerell and Miss
Lawrence stayed on deck, I believe, till morning. After a bit I got to
sleep again, for the ship was steady enough, and there was nothing
very tragic in the appearance of things.
" By daylight we were able to make out where we were. Suliman
thought at first the hills in front of us were the Hamam Faraoun. But
later we made out Serbal and the mouth of Wady Feiran, so it is
now agreed that we are ashore north of Ras Jehan. The Captain, Ross,
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1900] A Man Drowned 353
did not seem to know much about it. He told us he had only left the
deck ten minutes when the thing happened. [This turned out after-
wards to have been quite untrue. He had come on board late, having
been at some entertainment at Suez, and gone to bed early without giv-
ing any proper instructions as to the course. No watch was kept, and we
drove straight on a coral reef, without so much as slackening speed
or with a cry of breakers ahead ! We must be clear eight miles out of
our course, and it looks like bad seamanship. Here we are, anyhow,
stuck fast on a line of sand banks (they proved to be a reef about
a mile from the shore) and with small chance of getting off to-day or
any other day. The steamer is miserably ill supplied with boats,
and still more miserably with seamen, there are only four boats capable
of taking off at most a dozen passengers each, and of these one is
already lost. They launched it, the Captain says, in order to put
out a hawser for an anchor to windward, but it was swamped by a
breaker, and at least one man has been drowned. I saw another
holding on to the hawser for some minutes, and we thought he would
be swept away too, but at last he got hold of a rope and hitched it
round him, and was pulled up the ship side, but it was a near shave.
The boat drifted away, and is now on the sandbank (reef) bottom
upwards, and five lifebuoys, which were thrown to the drowning men,
are drifting on shore. The captain asked me about the nature of the
country on which we had run, the shore of the Sinai penisula, and I
offered to let my Bedouin, Suliman, go in a boat if they could put
him safely on shore when the wind drops ; he would then take a mes-
sage to Tor, which is not more than forty miles away, asking help.
Suliman, however, is very unwilling to go, now that he has seen
the feluca swamped and the man drowned, nor will I let him attempt
it until the wind goes down. [It was Suliman's first experience of
being at sea, and, like most Bedouins, he was frightened at being off
his own element.] Should it become calm I shall propose that we are
all sent on shore here with our baggage, as we are the only passengers
for Tor, and we have provisions enough with us for a fortnight. I
am writing this at 9.45 a.m.
" 1.30 p.m. — Things look worse than they did. The tide going down
has shown that we are on a coral reef, which may be half a mile
in width, with, perhaps, three miles of comparatively still water
beyond it to the shore. Also the wind has become stronger, and, though
the waves do not break over the deck, we are beginning to heel over
in rather an alarming way. I finished Tolstoy's * Resurrection ' this
morning. It is a most depressing book, and makes one as willing as
one can easily be to leave a life so miserable as Tolstoy shows it.
I don't know which is the more hopeless, the picture of polite society
en dScomposition, or that of his convicts and political prisoners who
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354 LiU o^ **^ Wreck [1900
find a dreary satisfaction in helping each other in ways which human
nature cannot really be satisfied with. All the same, one clings a bit
to life. There is a certain physical menace in death which it is ill
to face, and I feel it more strongly this afternoon than I did last night
when the danger was vaguer and newer. The poor man drowned has
saddened us, and made the danger seem more real, but as yet we have
not even begun to feel discomfort. No water has reached the cabins,
or even the decks, except now and then the spray of a wave, and the
sun is shining brightly, and we are surrounded by flights of happy
seagulls. The shore is romantic and beautiful between Serbal, in front
to the north-east and Ghareb to the south-west, both mountains which
I love and on which I could be content to die. It is the physical re-
pulsion that one has, that of being knocked to pieces on the reef, or
drowned in one's cabin. Two ships have been sighted far oflF, but
they took no notice of our signals, and we are fully ten miles away from
the usual Red Sea course. My own only satisfaction is to think Anne
did not come with us. She has a terror of water, though of nothing
else, and would have been unhappy. Both Cockerell and Miss Law-
rence are cheerful and undisturbed; indeed, every one is behaving
well. We are all three sitting on the upper deck now, on a carpet
with one of the pilgrims next us, a man from Mitgamr. At every
blow of a wave which shakes the ship he ejaculates, * Ya robb 1 Ya
robbina' ! (From God are all things. Yes, all. Our Lord is mer-
ciful. Ya, Robb!) Below there is an old lady who puts her head
out of the cabin and calls to her son, *Ya, Yusuf! Ya, YusufI'
The rest are devout and quiet, and there is none of the affectation
of merriment one would see under like circumstances on board a P.
andO.
" loth March (Friday). [N.B. This part of my Diary is splashed
with sea water, but still legible.] We have had a very bad night and
things this morning look almost hopeless. With the rise of the tide
at sunset the wind increased in violence, blowing still from the north-
west, and the waves swept the upper deck. I went up to try and
persuade Suliman and Hassan to come below, but they would not
move. The whole night through the ship was banged upon the reef —
raised by each wave, and let down with a thundering bang upon her
keel, which prevented much sleeping. At times it seemed as if she
must break her back. At midnight it was quieter, but it is worse than
ever this morning, and the ship has settled lower into the water.
There is only one comfort, she is now wholly aground, and cannot
sink lower. It depends all on the wind. If it goes on like this for
another night she will break up, and there is no chance of a rescue.
There are practically no boats and no sailors. The captain would
not risk trying to land the passengers except in a calm. Even the
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1900] Banged upon the Reef 355
arrival of another ship would be of no use, as we could not be got
off. If the wind does not fall, it will not be our pilgrims' fault,
for they pray strenuously, with a fine male devotion. The women
have been drilled to silence, or at any rate to pray instead of com-
plaining, even the little boys shout, ' AUahu Akbar. Ya latif ' I and
the women add prayers to Seyd el Bedawi of Tantah. For my own
part I say my usual prayers to the dead and to St. Winifred, who
may help me, as she did three years ago, a superstition which quiets
the mind. I have been reading the Gospels, too, in an edition Cocker-
ell got me for our journey to Sinai, parts of Matjiew, Mark, and Luke,
the doctrinal parts of which are splendid, and as little like our English
nineteenth-century Christianity as it is possible to conceive. How fool-
ish my Nietsche correspondent's talk about it is. The water is coming
into the cabin, so I must leave off. Miss Lawrence has been altogether
admirable through all this, doing her duty to me as a nurse just as if
at home, and cheerful and courageous as I never saw anyone. I have
just been on deck and got wet through. It has made me feel more
indifferent to what may happen, and I contemplate the water filling
up the cabin and drowning us without much repugnance. It is the
getting wet that one really dislikes. It is now 7.30 a.m., and we hope
the wind is lulling, otherwise our prospects are poor.
"11 a.m. — Though things remain precisely as yesterday, and with
rather less chance of a good issue, for the wind blows as hard as ever,
everybody on board has settled down to the situation. There are no
more querulous plaints of the women, and the prayers are less in-
cessant. The children are pla)ring merrily in the saloon, the little
boy pretending to bastinado the little girl on the soles of her feet,
and there is a group of women on the ground gossiping as if at market.
This, I suppose, is in all human nature. People go about their affairs,
however much there may be an earthquake or any other catastrophe
impending. I have settled down to a novel, which I brought with me
in case of accidents causing delay anywhere. There is no sign yet of
succour from any quarter, and I expect to-night will be critical. The
thumping and banging on the reef goes on, and all of our cabins are
in a leaky state at the portholes; fortunately the ship stands pretty
steady on her keel, with only a slight list to port. This has kept us
fairly dry, though on the main deck the pilgrims must be suffering
terribly. There has been no cooking done to-day, as the fires are out.
Also salt water has got into the fresh water tanks, and we may be soon
short of water to drink.
" Later. In the afternoon, at Cockerell's suggestion, we moved our
quarters from the after-cabin, which is being much battered by the
sea, to the upper platform in the centre of the ship. There we are
sheltered by a bit of awning from the wind and spray, and the waves
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356 Camped on the Upper Deck [1900
do not wash quite so high. Suliman had already established him-
self there, and it is pleasant to have our little camp with him altogether
as if we were in the desert. The sight of the waves breaking over the
reef is interesting, and there are seagulls to watch and floating sea-
weed, and one can mark the variations in strength of the wind; the
centre of the ship, too, is free from the thumping of the stem, and
we have a feeling here that even if she breaks in two, the fore half
where we are would remain firm on the reef. Nor is it a small ad-
vantage to be free from the incessant prayers of the rich pilgrims in
the cabin, who shout in chorus all day long, and of the children who,
in imitation of them, make treble invocations of their own. In the
forecastle, which we overlook, the pilgrims, mostly Persians, confine
themselves to an ' Alahu Akbar,' when any specially big wave breaks
over them. There is one of them stationed on purpose to look out
for the big waves and announce their coming. Here we are settling otu:-
sdves for the night.
"nth March. — The sunset last night was less yellow than the day
had been, for there had been a thick haze, and the stars and the moon
came out, but the wind blew all night as hard as ever, the waves run-
ning up to within a couple of feet of our platform, making one wonder
whether the afterpart of the ship had not been carried away. We
made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit under
our awning, and I took a little dose of morphia to keep me warm
through the night. I had got wet through in my European clothes,
and have now got on my Arab things, and so dozed through the
night, trying to fancy myself in Jendali or on Kalala. Miss Lawrence
and Cockerell too, none of us in much comfort, for we could not
lie down. Still things might mave been worse, and we were able to
keep dry, and the wind is not a cold one. The pilgrims, among whom
we are now established, began by being not quite friendly, one or
two thought I was masquerading as a pilgrim, and asked me why
I wore the akhram, and whether I had a passport from Constantinople,
nor could I altogether satisfy them, as they did not understand Arabic,
being mostly Turks or Bokharists. But the feeling amongst them
has quite changed now. This is owing to my having taken their side
against the captain, and decided him at last to send off a boat to the
shore. [The captain, since the ship had struck, had shut himself up
almost entirely in his cabin, refusing to do an)rthing or take any
measures.] The pilgrims had insisted upon his sending off a boat,
and had come to the cabin door in a body, under the leadership of an
old sea-captain, a Moslem from the Caspian, a rugged fellow in an
Astrakhan cap, who declared he could easily steer a boat on shore at
high tide across the reef, and so carry the news of our shipwreck to
Tor. This seemed to me a sensible plan; and I went with them to
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the cabin, and got the captain to consent, though there was a difficulty
in finding men to man the boat, as all the ship's crew (there were only
five of them), odd men picked up at Suez, were frightened at the
drowning of the sailor on Thursday, and I volunteered myself, if
necessary, to go, and with me Suliman to run on with the news to
Tor; and Cockerell also would have gone and Miss Lawrence, but
there was no boat large enough for us all, and at last it was decided
that Suliman alone should go, with five of the ship's crew. He was
very unwilling, as he is terribly afraid of the sea, but I persuaded
him there was really no great danger. He bid me a solemn farewell,
taking off most of his clothes and handing over to me his money and
his passport. Then the ship's crew would have nothing to do with the
Caspian sea-dog as their commander, and at one time the whole plan
seemed as if it would break down, for Captain Ross was without
resource or power of command. At last, however, just on the turn of
the high tide, they got the boat launched and across the reef, and so to
the shore in safety. We were able to watch them till they landed. So
Suliman at least is out of danger, and may bring us help from Tor.
The boat was the last one left, as one was lost on Thursday, and the
two others were destroyed last night by the sea. Some of the ship's
company are making a raft, in case things come to the worst. Except
the lack of drinking water, however, I don't think there is much im-
mediate danger, as the wind has moderated and the sky has become
clear. The difficulty is that there is no means now of getting the
pilgrims on shore, even if it is calm, as we have not a boat left, and
are without water. We ourselves fortunately have with us three
quart bottles of water, which are still intact, and a large number of
oranges, but unless help comes to-morrow or next day, it will fare
badly with all of us. One of the pilgrims, though very amiable to us,
has told me the captain's throat ought to be cut. They all think he
is hiding water, though that is not the case. There never was a ship,
however, sent to sea worse found, or with a more incapable captain.
" We have made special friends with two of the pilgrims, Russian
subjects, one a Tartar, living at St. Petersburgh, formerly an Alem
of Bokhara, who has spoken to me in high praise of Sheykh Jemal
el Din. He is a very superior man, in a snuff-coloured robe. The
other, a Mongol from the Crimea, who has been a student for the last
fourteen years at the Azhar at Cairo. This one is a thick-set heavy
man of the true Chinese type, or rather of the Mongol type, from
which Chinamen derive their features. These have taken up their
quarters next to us, and they are very polite to us — with them most
of their friends. We have distributed a few of our oranges among
them ; all complain of thirst. The most interesting of all, however, is
an Arab from Medina, a Muhajjer who affects the character of a wely.
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358 A Muhajjer from Medina [1900
He is the most beautiful human being I ever saw, going bareheaded,
with an immense shock of black hair in ringlets ; his face is very dark,
and brilliant as a hawk's, his teeth splendidly white, and his eyes of
womanish, gazelle-like lustre. His beard, too, like his hair, is a whole
mass of ringlets, and his hands and feet are of perfect form. With
all he is kindly and friendly, with a peculiar, inconsequent way, as
becomes a saint. [He was fantastically dressed when he came on
board, with gorgeous muslin robes, but these got soon draggled with
the sea water, without thereby affecting his gay spirits or pleasant
smile. He would go about from one to other of the pilgrims with
a pleasant word to each, and gave away at once the oranges we gave
him. His exact position in life, except that he was a Muhajjer, I never
ascertained, but he invited me cordially to his house if I visited Medina,
and was especially polite to all of us. Most of those that I have men-
tioned talked Arabic, but many knew no word of it, having come from
distant parts of Asia.] They are evidently good, pious people, and it
is a relief to find ourselves among them at a solemn moment like the
present, when we have death, so to say, staring us in the face, and away
from the few ungodly Englishmen who frequent the bar of the first
class cabin. I never marked the contrast more, and it consoles me not
a little for the rest.
" Miss Lawrence is wonderful in her simple courage and good sense.
She makes us all as comfortable as the small space we have will admit,
and has not said a complaining word. When I said to her half in fun,
'Your poor patient has almost come to the end of his tether,' she
answered simply, ' I cannot think we shall be drowned. God would
not allow all these good people who call on him to perish.* Cockerell,
too, is full of help. He has made friends with a young Belgian and
a young English accountant, who are better than the rest, and gathers
a deal of information about all that is going on.
"It came on blowing terribly again in the afternoon, and the sea
has put on the pale green look it has in the northern seas — each wave
capped with foam. The waves are pouring over the lower decks, and
the ship is sinking a bit in her bed. A great ship was seen just at
sunset, and wild hopes were indulged. The sailors hoisted a torch at
the mast-head, but the vessel was too far away and soon disappeared.
Nor could she have helped us had she come to us for no captain would
put out a boat in such a sea. Notwithstanding all this we under our
awning on the bridge have passed (12th March) a not quite uncom-
fortable night. Only one woke every few minutes with a start, and
thoughts forced themselves on one's mind of things beyond the world.
There were signs of lightning in the hills in the direction of Mount
Sinai, and one seemed to see in them God's anger in his dwelling place,
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perhaps at one's impiety at seeking to set foot on it, and for the attitude
I have taken of having complained or his dereliction of his duty and
neglect of the World and Man. Towards morning just in front of us
stood the Scorpion, for the sky was clear, and it reminded me of many
things. It was then that Miss Lawrence used the words that I have
recorded. This is the worst night that we have passed, and there seems
little left to hope.
" 12th March. — Our fourth day on the reef, which is whiter than
ever with foam — the wind stronger and the waves higher. The cabins
aft are flooded, and the people are leaving them, and crowding on to
the bridge. Nevertheless there is a more cheerful feeling, for at eight
o'clock a vessel approached which was recognized as one of the
Khedivial Line Steamers, the Misr, evidently sent out to look for us.
We could not, however, communicate with her, as there is no system
of signalling on board, and the sea is far too big for them to launch a
boat ; they have therefore gone back in the direction of Tor, waiting
we suppose for the wind to moderate. This gives us something to
hope for, and all agree that the gale cannot last much longer, and that
the ship is too fast on the reef to be in immediate danger — only that
the pilgrims are in straits for water, and I hear that a woman and child
have died. The stewards, meanwhile (for the government of the
vessel and the administration of the supplies are abominable) are
selling soda at exorbitant prices to the richer people. We dare not
give away our water yet, as it would be drunk up at once, but we give
oranges. Personally I have not drunk a tumbler of water in the last
three days and have eaten nothing but half-a-dozen oranges. The
morphia I have taken does away with both thirst and hunger, there is
much dampness too in the air, and the pilgrims I think suffer much
less from thirst itself than the thought of it, knowing there is no water.
Most of them come from the northern countries where water abounds,
and the thought of being without it frightens them, as it does not
frighten the Arabs. They make very little complaint, however, con-
sidering how hardly they are treated. I go on writing my journal and
reading and dozing between times. The sun is shining brilliantly, and
we are not so uncomfortable for the waves do not reach us, and the
spray here and on the forecastle is not very wetting. It is at night
that the gloomy thoughts come.
'' There is a Greek boatswain or second officer who tells me that he
has been eight times wrecked, and twice in this same Chibine. If
I get safe on shore this time,* he said, ' I go to sea no more. I sell
oranges for a living, it is better.' He is certainly right. They have
finished two rafts, or rather punts, unseaworthy looking craft, which
I should be loath to embark in. The thought of the Red Sea sharks
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360 Rescued by a Man-of-JVar [1900
has been, I fancy, with all of us, though we say nothing about it. The
still water inside the reef must be full of them — here it is too rough,
and there is only drifting seaweed and a multitude of gulls.
" Later. The weather shows signs of improvement, though the sea
is as high as ever, and the wind is hardly less, but the sky is clearing,
and the line of hills on the west coast is beginning to show again.
We can see Ghareb and the rest. I feel confident the wind will fall
at sunset. And the Misr should return and take us off to-morrow —
but ever)rthing depends upon the fall of the wind.
"Evening. Our troubles, I hope, are over. At 4 p.m., behold as
a coup de tlveatre, H.M.S. Hebe, a gunboat, arriving from Suez to
our rescue. The sea was still very heavy, and the wind as strong as
ever, but Commander Taylor in command of her, gallantly put off in
a whale-boat, and has himself come on board our wreck. His arrival
has relieved us entirely from our anxiety, for though he cannot land
us to-night he is satisfied our ship is in no immediate danger of break-
ing up. He will return in the morning and take us all across the reef
at high tide, if it is still rough, or directly to Tor if the wind has
gone down. He is a good, clean-shaven, grey-eyed little British officer
of the best type. To us personally he offered, if we wished, to take
us all three off with him at once to-night, but as he seemed to think it
would be rather a risk, especially with Miss Lawrence, we elected to
stay on the wreck yet another night — and it is well we did — for the
whale-boat as we could see it had a narrow shave of being capsized,
and was unable to get taken on board the Hebe on her return until
the Hebe had moved down a mile or two to leeward of the reef.
What has caused Taylor coming is this. As long ago as Saturday
the people at Suez became uneasy at getting no telegram about us from
Tor, but imagined the Chibine must have neglected to call there and
gone on to Jeddah, then rumours came that something was wrong,
and the Misr was sent out to look for us, and later Cromer, having
been referred to, ordered the Hebe out. The Hebe was to have
looked for us on the West Coast of the Red Sea, but fortunately just
as she was getting up steam our telegram, carried by Suliman and
despatched from Tor, arrived, telling them where we were, otherwise
they would have searched the Western Coast in vain, and might not
have found us for some days. However, as our friend the Crimean
pilgrim says, 'El hamdu Tlllah' (God has not forgotten his slaves).
We are all congratulating each other now, and the pilgrims are showing
their good-will to us, and thanks for having helped to get Suleyman
sent ashore, in a number of agreeable ways.
"13th March (Tuesday), — Our last night on the wreck was a
peaceful and a joyful one. At sunset the wind, as was expected, dropped
— and it is now nearly a dead calm. I slept profoundly. With the
Digitized by
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1900] On Board the ''Hebe*' 361
first light we got our traps together, and distributed all our remaining
provisions among the pilgrims who were ravenous for our oranges.
These were rescued at last from the water which had been sweeping
over them on the after deck. They had been well packed and were not
much spoiled. The best of them went to our friends, Sheykh Abdul
Hamid, and the gallant sea-dog of the Caspian, Suleyman Ismailoff of
Astrakhan, the rest I took with Hassan in a bundle to the forecastle
where they were eagerly grabbed for by the Persian pilgrims, es-
pecially the women. Here are the names of our chief friends on board.
Sheikh Abdul Hamid of St. Petersburgh, one of the Ulema, and his
friend, Suleyman Ali from Crimea, a Crim Tartar Student of the
Azhar, Captain Sule)rman IsmailoflF of Astrakhan; our friend the
Muhajjer, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, Mohammed Ali,
aged nine, a gay boy who was the captain's servant. Gilroy, an English
accountant going to Jeddah, Dr. Edward Rist of the Sanitary Board
of Alexandria (an Alsacian Frenchman, of whom we afterwards saw
much).
" 3 p. M. We are on board H.M^^S. Hebe. At eight o'clock we
were taken oflF among the first of those rescued by Captain Taylor, and
are once more on the clean deck of a British man-of-war, feeling that
after all the British Fleet has its beneficent uses and was intended for
other things than only the bombardment of Eastern towns. Taylor tells
me that but for the tel^^am sent by Suliman, we must have been
several days longer on the reef — we might well have been overlooked
till it was too late. All is ended now, however, and we can say ' El
hamdu I'lUah.' In the course of the morning other ships arrived, and
all the pilgrims having been taken from the wreck and placed on board
them, they went on their way to Jeddah, while we returned to Suez on
the Hebe.
" Names of the Officers of the Hebe are : Commander Taylor,
Lieutenant Frederick Loder S)rmonds, Lieutenant James Kirkness,
Surgeon Herbert Gill, Chief Engineer George Pascoe.
" The officers of the Hebe are an excellent set of men ; they have
entertained us all last night on board, feasting our hunger, and giving
us stretchers for beds. Remembering the navy as I knew it forty
years ago at Athens, these young officers seem to me superior in intel-
ligence and manners to what they then were. The Hebe is one of the
new and highly scientific gunboats which require men of head and
education to work them, and they took pleasure in explaining to us
everything, more indeed than I did in listening, for machinery is the
least interesting of novelties. We might have been taken on to Tor if
we had wished it, but I decided against this, seeing the peril we had
escaped, and I have a superstition against continuing a journey in
face of a strong warning ; indeed to me this is more than a warning.
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Z(>2, A Vision of Wrath [1900
I see in it a menace forbidding me to approach the Holy Mountain.
Perhaps another year I may return, but not now.
" In the early morning as we arrived at Suez I was awoke from
sleep by a very terrible dream or imagination, for I was between wak-
ing and sleeping. The screws of the gunboat had been reversed, and
there was a fearful vibration on board, so loud that it sounded like
a storm. I thought that we had come to the head of the gulf to that
place where Pharoah and the Egyptians were overwhelmed in the sea,
and that an immense wind had struck us from the west, so that the
gunboat was being driven on to the eastern shore. It was a storm so
terrible that nothing could live in it, and I knew that it had been sent
by God, and I heard a voice sa)ring : ' There are no pilgrims here to
save you again by their prayers,' and I was terror struck and I made
my profession of faith — * La Allah ila Allah, wa Mohammed rasul
Allah,' nor was I relieved of my fear until I had looked out of the
scuttle and seen the lights of Suez, and smooth water, and the Scor-
pion in a quite clear sky. [I think the extreme vividness of this dream
was probably due to the morphia I had been taking during the wreck.]
I remember Captain Taylor, whose cabin I was sharing, asking me
what o'clock it was, and I told him a quarter to three. He was sur-
prised at my knowing this when, having struck a match, he found that
I was exactly right. I had calculated it by the stars in the Scorpion**s
tail, which are an excellent clock at this time of year, but sailors have
forgotten these old-fashioned observations of the stars."
The next fortnight of my journal is defective. The excitement of
the shipwreck over, I felt the effect of it, and was once more suffering
in health. My last days in Egypt before returning to Europe were
occupied in laying before Lord Cromer the circumstances of the pil-
grim case, and urging him to take up the defence of these Moslems,
whose safety had been so jeopardized by the disgraceful mismanage-
ment of the Khedivial Government, the lack of all proper provision
for them on board, and the incompetence of the captain. I also wrote
a strong letter in the same sense to the " Times,'* with the effect that
a naval court of inquiry was appointed to be held at Suez on board
H.M.S. HcUycon. Consul Cameron presiding. This Court Cocker-
ell and I and Dr. Rist attended, and we gave evidence with the result
that on the 28th of March, the Court found against the Company,
and Rist and I were publicly thanked for our " public spirited action,"
while it eventually led to new regulations being issued with regard
to the pilgrim traffic in the Red Sea, which to some extent alleviated
the evils of the system so long pursued. All that I find of importance
in my journal is the following account of my final visit to the Khedive.
" 2nd April. — To sec the Khedive at Abdin, where I found Moham-
Digitized by
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med Abdu also waiting for an audience. He introduced me to Mo-
hammed Pasha Shukri, the Khedive's Turkish secretary, and other
functionaries, all very amiable, as they had heard of the shipwreck
and how I had brought the pilgrim case forward.
"Abbas received me with affection, and we had a most intimate
and interesting conversation. .It began about the pilgrim traffic, as to
the better regulation of which he promised help. Then he went on
to talk of his journey to the Western oasis. He told me that he had
been extremely well received by the Senussia, and had found out
everything he wanted to know about them. Their principle of con-
duct, he said, was to obey the law in all coimtries where they resided.
In the Zaghwiyahs nothing was permitted to be done which could bring
them into conflict with the Government. Although they imported arms
and ammunition, largely from Egypt, these never passed through the
Zaghwiyahs, but through individuals, generally poor men, so that if
discovered it would not bring them discredit. In the Zaghwiyahs
nothing compromising would be found. He assured me, however, that
the Arabs of the Western tribes, all of whom belonged to the brother-
hood, were well armed with Martini rifles; the brothers were very
particular whom they would talk to; they would trust no Christian,
and no Moslem who served a Christian, as, for instance, no Egyptian
soldier, because the Sirdar and officers were Christians, also no Mos-
lem who did not pray and openly show himself such. He was evi-
dently much impressed by their strength and their organization, and by
the instruction and high character of their leading men. All this seems
to tally' with what Mohammed Abdu told me lately of the Khedive's
having become ' superstitious and opposing Liberal reform in the Az-
har on the ground that he feared to lose the prayers of the old-fashioned
faithful.'
" He then talked of his intended visit to England. I advised him
to talk frankly to everybody, and promised to do what little I could
personally to dispose people in his favour. Lastly, he told me Lord
Cromer had spoken to him about allowing Arabi to return to Egypt,
but he had a grief on this head against Lord Cromer, inasmuch as
Cromer had refused to allow his grandfather, Ismail, to come back
and die in Egypt. Ismail was suffering from cancer, and only asked
to see Cairo before he died, but Cromer had refused, why then should
he now come to him and say, ' Let Arabi return.' We stood together
discussing this matter for some time, as I was going out, and it ended
by his promising or half promising to grant Arabi's pardon. Another
farewell visit was to my old friend and neighbour, Sheykh Hassan
Abu Tawil, now very near his end. I found him (sth April) like
Job upon his bed, surrounded with comforters, a mere skeleton, too
feeble to rise. I asked him whether he had had the doctor to see him,
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364 Ouida at Home [1900
but he said ' No, he preferred to be doctored by God/ and this is
probably best even scientically. I told him the tale of our shipwreck,
and he besought me to have a lamb slain for Sheykh Obeyd, and I
promised him so to do, though I have a quarrel with our local saint
for the little good he did me two years ago. I shall be grieved to
lose old Hassan, for he is good, and much betoved by his tribes-people.
We leave Sheykh Obeyd for Italy to-morrow."
My journey home was made with Cockerell and Miss Lawrence,
Lady Anne having preceded us, and at Brindisi I received a telegram
from her, announcing the birth of a grandson. Another fellow-travel-
ler was M. Cogordan, the French Minister at Cairo, a man of great
intelligence and knowledge of art and archaeology. We stopped the
night at Ancona and several days at Florence, where we found Lady
Paget and Lady Windsor, and where I made acquaintance with Mrs.
Ross, Lady Duff Gordon's daughter, who was so long in Egypt, as to
which she had pleasant recollections of things that happened thirty and
more years ago. Our next halting place was Lucca, which I had
not visited since 1852, when, as a boy of eleven, I spent the simimer
at the Lucca Baths. I remember having been taken to see the Holy
Coat, and of having beheld in the streets the Grand Duke and Duchess
of Tuscany, with the fat grand ducal children, pass in their carriage
in days before the invention of the Kingdom of Italy.
The next day I went with Cockerell to call on Ouida at her villa
at S. Alessib, some three miles from Pisa. I had been in correspon-
dence with her on literary matters, and took the opportunity of pay-
ing her a visit. "Our driver did not know the house or who we
wanted, until he suggested ' the lady with the many dogs.' We said,
* Oh, yes, the lady with the dogs,' and so it was. Ouida's house proved
to be a nice old villa with a high garden wall and an eighteenth century
iron gate, towards which from inside seven or eight dogs, poodles
mostly and nondescripts, came at us, open-mouthed, when we rang.
It was some time before we could make our ringing heard, and the bell
was answered at last by a portly man-cook in cap and apron, who,
after some further delay, on my sending in my card, admitted us.
We were shown into the front hall, and there found the lady of the
house seated at a small table, as one sees in the opening scene of a
play, arranged apparently for the occasion. She was a little old lady,
dressed in white, who rose to meet us and reprove her dogs, still yelp-
ing at us in chorus. A mild reproof it was, nor did it save us from
their caresses. The largest poodle placed himself upon my knees, and
another took my hat in his mouth. * They do not often bite,' she ex-
plained, * except beggars.' I had been prepared by the violence of her
writings and anecdotes I had heard of her from Lady Paget and others,
to find a person somewhat loud and masculine, but Ouida proved the
Digitized by
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reverse of this. In face she is much more French than English (her
father, she told us, was French, M. de la Ramee, and her mother an
Englishwoman), small featured, soft, and distinguished, with a high
forehead, rather prominent blue eyes, dulled and watery with age,
almost white hair, and that milk and roses complexion old people some-
times acquire, and which gives them a beatified look. It was difficult
to believe her capable of such a malevolence as her novel, ' Friendship.'
She can never have been a sensual woman, whatever passions she may
have revelled in in her writings. Her conversation is good, intellec-
tual, without being affected, or the talk of a blue stocking. It gives
you the impression of a woman who has thought out her ideas, and
has the courage of her opinions. We talked about the inhumanity
of modem Europe, especially modem England, and the rage for
slaughter, which is its chief feature. Also about Italy and Crispi,
who is her bete noir there, as Qiamberlain is in England. She talks
English perfectly, as she says she does also French and Italian, and com-
plained to us of the slipshod writing of the day. It was evidently
a pleasure to her to talk, and to find us such good listeners. With
Cockerell she was immensely taken, and was curious to know who
he could be, for I had not introduced him, and persisted in thinking
him a personage in disguise. At the end of a couple of hours we moved
to go, but she would have detained us, and made us promise to come
again. She cannot, she says, now go to England, on her dogs' account,
and, indeed, they monopolize her life. Altogether she is a pathetic
figure, condemned to solitude, not by choice, but by necessity, and re-
gretting the cheerful society of Florence, an exile imposed on her, I
fancy, by poverty and her bitter pen. ' The world,' she said, * takes
its revenge on us for having despised it.' We both left her with feel-
ings of respect, almost of affection, certainly of sympathy and pity."
[With Cockerell Ouida corresponded to the day of her death, though
I believe they never met again.]
Yet another visit in Italy was to Princess Helene, now Duchess of
Aosta, at her palace in Turin, where I had luncheon with her and her
husband, who stmck me as a kind of understudy of the Emperor
William, a good talker but somewhat bmsque. As fourth at luncheon
there was his stepmother, the Dowager Duchess Letitia Bonaparte,
daughter of old Plon Plon, who is much with them. I was introduced
to both as a revolutionary character in connection with my adventures
in Ireland. There was talk also of the Transvaal War, which they,
in common with all foreigners, consider an unfortunate, not to say
ridiculous, affair for England. The meal was a pleasant one, and in
the aftemoon Cockerell and I went on by the night train to Paris. My
companion in the sleeping car was Colonel Needham, military secre-
tary at the Rome Embassy, who told me that Kitchener, who had
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366 "The Thing Must Not Occur Again" [1900
been the best hated man in the British army, is now becoming almost
popular in South Africa. A visit to Gros Bois followed where, as
usual, there was much interesting talk. Among other things told me
was this, that the seriousness of the anti-Semitic rage in France was
due to Alphonse Rothschild's neglect to buy up Drumont. He might
have done it for a small sum early in the day, but did not recognize
Drumont's power sufficiently and now it is too late. The Jews are put
in Coventry by all the great French world. There, as elsewhere
abroad, I found it considered that we had made ourselves ridiculous
in South Africa and that the war ought to be stopped.
We arrived at home in England 2Sth April.
" 1st May. — To the Danes to see Lady Lytton, travelling there with
Betty Balfour, who told amusing stories about Ireland, one being of
a voyage the Queen had made in her yacht The Queen used to be a
good sailor, but is disturbed now if it is at all rough and likes the
doctor to sit with her in the cabin and look after her. It came on to
blow and a wave struck the ship rather roughly, which alarmed and
made her indignant. ' Go up at once,' she said, ' Sir James, and give
the Admiral my compliments and teU him the thing must not occur
again.'
" I talked to Lady Lytton about the Khedive's intended visit. She
said the Queen would certainly see him if she was at Windsor, but
would most probably be away at Balmoral, and there was nobody else
who could be depended on to be polite. Lord Salisbury, now Lady
Salisbury was dead, would give himself no trouble, no more would the
Duke of Devonshire. Broderick and Lady Hilda were worse than
useless and the rest would not think it their business. She knew
nothing about the Prince of Wales. There never was a time when it
was more difficult to get the duties of politeness done to foreign princes.
" 2nd May, — ^Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis's Rooms, he
in high feather with his parliamentary success, though things are not
going as smoothly as they might at the War Office. They are in
trouble there about despatches they have published blaming Buller,
and George will have to defend the Grovernment on Friday. Evan
Charteris was lunching with us, which prevented any very intimate talk.
" lyth May. — Button spent the day with me at Newbuildings, his
mother having come with him. He tells me the relief of Mafeking is
being carried out by Kitchener, though his name has not been men-
tioned in the newspapers in connection with it. He went on to describe
the different systems of slavery and forced labour of the blacks in South
Africa. One of the great grievances of the Johannesburg people was
that they were not allowed by Kruger to have compotmds in which to
keep their / labourers.' Kruger was afraid they would arm and drill
Digitized by
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1900] 'Tree Labour^' in South Africa 367
their blacks, and consequently forbade it, leaving them to hire labour
as they could, which cost them a good deal more. The ' compound '
system of * free labour,' as practised at Kimberly and elsewhere in
Rhodesia is an ingenious substitute for slavery. The negroes are re-
cruited with promises of very high wages, and the wages are actually
paid, but once inside the walls of the compound they are permanently
prisoners and have to spend their wages there. To prevent their leav-
ing with a show of legality, a rule is enforced that each negro before
going out must be dosed. This has the double motive of preventing
them from swallowing and carrying away diamonds and, as the dose
is an immense one, of frightening them from undergoing it. The dose
plan was invented by the Jew Porges, who is now a millionaire at
Paris. Such negroes as, having saved money, face the dose and are
allowed to depart, are waylaid on their way back to the Zambezi, from
beyond which many are recruited by Boers in league with the mining
authorities, and stripped of all they have. The Government, he says,
is making itself very unpopular in Ireland and he thinks also in
England, but I cannot agree with him that there is the least chance
of their being turned out at the General Elections.
**2ist May. — The streets of London are decked with flags for a
foolish victory, the relief of Mafeking, and even the cottages in Sus-
sex flew their Union Jacks. This war has been so little glorious that
our patriots are thankful for the smallest of small mercies. One would
think that Napoleon and all the armies of Europe had been defeated
by the British arms.
22nd May. — The Poet Laureate has published an absurd effusion
in the ' Times ' about the relief of Mafeking.
'' GiUed in the afternoon on Keegan Paul, who is still confined to
his room and chair, and learned the details of Mivart's death, which
are dramatically terrible.
" 23rd May.— Called on Father Tyrrel, the Jesuit, at Farm Street.
Keegan Paul had shown me a letter from him about my poem, ' Satan
Absolved,' in which he had said, amongst other approving things, that
my account of the Incarnation was precisely the one he had always
had in his mind and he had suggested my calling on him, so I went.
I found Father Tyrrel very sympathetic, a thin, somewhat ascetic
figure, with a nervous, imaginative face, his age perhaps forty-eight.
We talked of Mivart, for whose ideas he clearly had much sympathy,
but he blamed him for having lost his temper in the quarrel. He spoke
strongly against the Roman Congregations, thought Vaughan had
been unfair in denying to Mivart an answer to his questions, but all
the same he was severe on Mivart for the final quarrd. It could only
be excused by the failure of his mental balance through ill health. I
asked him what really was the theology of Mivart's position, especially
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368 Father Tyrrel in Farm Street [1900
with regard to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Was Mivart
bound to accept the Pope's Encyclical? He said the Pope's Encyclical,
though an interesting pronouncement as being made by the Pope, was
in no way binding, though the extreme theologians maintained that
it was. Vaughan had no right to demand of Mivart adhesion to it,
an adhesion which was beyond what was ever demanded of converts
before their reception into the Church. Mivart's fault was one of
temper. He should have held his tongue and let the Congregation
say what they would. I asked him whether he knew Mejmell, but he
said, ' No, not personally,' and added that as to his Liberalism of
thought, he did not mind how liberal a man was so long as he retained
a definite basis for his ideas. By this I suppose he meant that there
must be a certain bed-rock of faith in the Church, however ill-defined.
We talked of Stonyhurst, and he was surprised when I praised his
system of protecting boys from all contact with evil. I said it
had been good for me if not for everybody. He called it
a French system, not peculiar to the Jesuits, and said it was much
altered now at Stonyhurst. Certainly, Father Tyrrel is as enlightened
a priest as I have ever met. He agreed with me that it was impossible
not to believe in Evolution, whatever might be pronounced at Rome.
' Rome,' he said, ' is two hundred years behind-hand. They never read
any modern work of criticism there, and do not take the trouble to
understand the opinions they condemn.' Forty years ago a priest so
outspoken would have saved my faith.
" Herbert Vivian looked in on me, fresh from Abyssinia. He tells
me the Abyssinian army has just been beaten by the Mohammedans
of the Southern Province. He gave a curious account of the French
colonists at Zeila, who sleep, he says, naked in the streets with the
native women, and who do every kind of violence, without restraint,
against the natives.
" 26th May, — Old Philip Webb came down for the day with Cock-
erell, a worthy old fellow, who is leaving off work at his trade of
architect, and is searching for a hermitage in which to end his days.
He has been too honest to make his fortune, and talks of living in a
iio cottage. I shall try and find him one.
*'2%th May, — All is satisfactorily settled about the Khedive's visit
to England, Lady L)rtton writes from Balmoral that he is to be lodged
at Buckingham Palace and the Queen will give him private audience.
" gth June. — Roberts is now in Pretoria. Our country fools have
been in ecstasies again over this, though it is quite manifest that both
Bloemf ontein and Pretoria have been purposely evacuated by the Boers
who have not lost a gun or hardly a man in their retreat. The papers
are all saying the war is over, but I think it niay well last till next year.
The Boers' campaigning season begins in October, and if they can
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igoo] The ''Yellow Terror^* Scare 369
manage to hold out in their mountains till then, they may turn the
tables yet.
" 26th June. — I have moved to-day from my rooms in Mount Street
to 37, Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, having taken the whole of that
house, a small one, with Hampden, as Mount Street was too small for
us both.
"27th June.— Dined with Godfrey Webb and Hugh Wyndham at
the Travellers. The excitement of the moment is the trouble in China,
where the Foreign Embassies are in danger from the mob. The Chi-
nese, after a long course of bullying by the Powers, worrying by
missionaries, and robbing by merchants and speculators have risen,
and are, very properly, knocking the foreign invasion on the head.
Admiral Se3rmour, with two thousand men, mostly English, who was
sent up to relieve the Embassy, is himself blockaded, as is Tientsin be-
hind him, and the rumpus is general.
" 28th June. — The Khedive has arrived at last in London at Buck-
ingham Palace.
"yd July. — To London and lunched with Wilfrid Lawson, who
told me a number of splendid new stories, and took me to an Aborig-
ines Protection Conference. Dined with Charles Russell and his wife.
" 7th July. — Our Arab Sale Day. An immense concourse of guests
but few buyers, some five hundred sitting down to luncheon. Hamp-
den piroposed my health as a poet, politician, and horse-breeder, which,
in my reply, I said was unkind, seeing that in the first two characters
I had been a failure, and I then gave them my idea of how to breed
horses for war. Many were prevented from coming by the news from
China, where all the European Ambassadors, they say, have been mur-
dered by the mob. People are shrieking against the Chinese, as in-
human barbarians, and there is wild talk about the Yellow Terror.
I wish I could believe that Europe stood in the smallest danger from
it. [This tale about the murder of the Ambassadors turned out to
be a Stock Exchange scare invented by the ' Daily Mail.']
" 13th July. — Drove with Anne to Wotton, stopping on the way at
Holmwood to lunch with William Gibson and his wife, a pleasant
Frenchwoman. He is an odd creature, much engrossed in ecclesiasti-
cism and the Irish Celtic revival, in honour of which he wears a drab
kilt, being by birth a Dublin Irishman of the Castle persuasion.
"15th July (Sunday). — At Newbuildings. Alfred Austin is stay-
ing here. We put him on a horse, but he was not happy on it, and
made ingenious excuses for ending the ride. We have had long talks
and discussions on theology, philosophy, and the Catholic church. He
is an acute and ready reasoner, and is well read in theology and science.
It is strange his poetry should be such poor stuff, and stranger still that
he should imagine it immortal.
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370 The Horse Show at Vincennes [1900
" 17th July, — It is certain now that the Europeans in Pekin have all
been massacred. [Nevertheless it turned out that the whole story was
a fable invented by the halfpenny press.]
" 31st July. — The King of Italy has been assassinated. The wonder
is that he has not long ago fallen a victim to his subjects whom he has
led into miserable poverty and ground down with taxes for his political
ambition. He wanted to be an Emperor like the rest of them, Emperor
of Ethiopia, and this is the end.
" i^th Aug. — Started on my sununer driving tour, going by Old-
house, where I had a long talk with Auberon Herbert about the great
affairs of the world. His son Bron has gone as correspondent to the
* Times * in South Africa, not much to Auberon's contentment. Then
on to St. Giles', where I dined and slept at the Shaftesburys'. The next
day by Rushmore to Qouds, where I stayed a week or more.
" 4th Sept. — Arrived by the night train in Paris, and drove straight
to the Horse Show at Vincennes, where I am exhibiting a number of
Ajabs, but the feeling just now is too strong against everything Eng-
lish for much hope of our getting prizes. The judges are French mil-
itary men, of the same class that sat in court-martial on Dreyfus. Also
the Sultan has a number of horses at the show which he has entered in
the names of various Turkish Generals, so as to elude the rule making
Government studs ineligible for competition. There were some saises
looking after them, whom I cross-questioned in Arabic, and they let
out to me that all really belonged to the Sultan. The handsomest Arab
mare is one sent by Prince Sanguscko, a very great beauty with a flea-
bitten coat. Then on to Gros Bois.
"5th Sept. — Gros Bois. There is nobody here but the family.
Alexandre, the boy, is a good talker and a good fellow, very superior
in intelligence to most young fellows of his age, which is seventeen,
while the two girls are charming and begin to make a feature in the
conversation and amusement for the house.
" 6th Sept. — To Paris to see the International Exhibition, a fatiguing
affair. I went through the Pavilions Etrangers, of which incomparably
the best is the Spanish, most of the others are cluttered up with the
rubbish of modern manufactures, and even the English Pavilion,
which represents a Victorian Gothic country-house, has a certain vul-
garity, but here in the Spanish section there is an incomparable dignity.
By a stroke of genius worthy of her days of splendour, Spain, ignoring
altogether the nineteenth century, even to its bric-a-brac, shows us a
mere empty house with tapestries on the walls, tapestries the most
magnificent ever shown, and in two small glass cases in the centre of
the room, the armour of Oiarles V, and the dress worn by Boabdil el
Chico — absolutely nothing more. The beautiful Morris tapestries in
the English House looked tawdry after these.
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1900] My First Automobile Drive 371
"7th Sept. — To Vincennes with Wagram where we breakfasted,
and saw the horses paraded before President Loubet A Fourth Prize
of 1,000 francs has been awarded to us for Mesaoud, and one of 500
francs for Bozra. All the superior prizes, however, have been got hold
of by the Sultan, under the name of Muzaffer Pasha, and with the help
of his own Inspector of Studs, Fuad Bey, and of one Hector Passega,
manager of the Ottoman Horse Show, both of them being judges here,
has manipulated the jury and swept the board. There was only one
first-class stallion in the Ottoman show, sent from Bagdad, and that
has been left out of the prize list. The others are rather ordinary
beasts, the First Prize being taken by a small black stallion, whose
colour is his chief recommendation. Only one is fit to show at all with
ours; however, it does not much matter, as we have had many ad-
mirers of a serious kind, and have already sold one mare, Makbula,
to Count Strogonoff for 10,000 francs.
" To-day is Berthe's wedding-day, and I have written her a sonnet.
Giovanni Borghese and Madame de Jaucourt, a friend of the Prince
of Wales, have come. After dinner, there were fireworks in the park,
and a crowd of people from the neighbourhood.
"Sth Sept, — With Berthe in her new automobile to Paris for the
day, going at about fifteen miles an hour. It is certainly an exhilarat-
ing experience, quite new to me, and if the machine could be made
cheaper (hers cost iSoo, and an ordinary one £400) would doubtless
take the place of horses and carriages. In France it is already much
used, but in England, where the roads are neither so broad nor so
straight, I doubt whether they will become popular until the mechanism
has been simplified and cheapened very considerably. We went a
round of the Colonial shows of the popular kind, representing March-
and setting fire to African villages, and French generals bombarding
the Madagascans. Then to the Petit Palais with its splendid bric-a-
brac, and alongside it the Grand Palais, a modem monstrosity forming
together a caricature of the nineteenth century. On the one side a huge
show of everything hideous the century has produced; on the other,
giving its eclectic fancy for ages gone by.
"gth Sept. — Paid a last visit to the Horse Show, where we have
taken four medals and prizes, 1,000 francs, 800 francs, 600 francs, and
500 francs. The printed list calls them recompenses it being not even
pretended that the judging is according to merit, the medals being
awarded to the exhibitors rather than to the beasts. As a rule those
who sent most animals got most prizes.
" loth Sept. — Back to Newbuildings, taking Alexandre with me for
some English shooting. He is a nice young man, extremely well
educated and full of ideas, which he expresses fluently in somewhat
imperfect English. 'In France/ he said to-day, talking of duels.
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' when men quarrel and one receives a g^e, he is expected to beat him-
self/
"22nd Sept. — Politically much has happened in the last week.
Kruger has abandoned the Transvaal, and the Boer army, though never
yet beaten in battle, seems to have broken up into small bands, so that
our Government has some ground for saying the war is over. On this.
Parliament has been dissolved. I shall take no part whatever in the
new elections, as neither political party has the slightest claim on my
sympathy. It is difficult to say between Rosebery and Chamberlain
which would be the more dangerous in power.
" 1st Nov. — I left home on Monday for Egypt, this being Thursday.
London, when I passed through, was in an absurd uproar on account of
the return of the City Volunteers from South Africa. People have be-
come idiotic over this war, to the extent that they really think something
chivalrous and noble has been achieved, while we have been making our-
selves not only detested, but a laughing-stock the whole world over. I
found George getting ready for a speech he is to make at Dover. He
talked very scornfully of Rosebery and the Imperial Radicals, who had
dished the chances of their party by supporting the war, and had put his
own party in power for another fifteen years. * There will be a reaction,
of course, some day,' he said, * but they won't profit by it. Rosebery will
have to join us altogether, as Burke did Pitt, or be left out permanently
in the cold. He talked of his own prospects of promotion, which he
said had been a little injured by his candour in admitting defects in
the conduct of the war, though he had saved the Government by the
line he took last Spring. ' But it does not matter,' he said, ' politics
are a long game, and I shall not lose in the end by telling the truth.'
As it was, he had some chance, he said, of being shifted to Ireland, and
he said I must write and tell him what I thought of it if it came to pass.
I said the Irish remembered he was Lord Edward Fitzgerald's great-
grandson, and it would be something to start on, but would not carry
him far. George's political hard work has aged him and he is much
greyer than I am, though only thirty-seven. Hampden, who expresses
Chamberlain's ideas about the war, said to-day, ' It looks as if the only
way of ending it will be to deport all the Boer women and hang all the
Boer men. Roberts will come home and leave Kitchener behind him
to do the butcher work.* He argued quite seriously that this was not
only necessary but implied nothing disgraceful to us as a nation, yet
Hampden was a Gladstonian Radical M.P. of the most advanced non-
intervention tjrpe twenty years ago, and is now a respected Liberal
nobleman and ex-Governor of a Colony.
''6th Nov. — On board the P. and O. Valetta. Among the pas-
sengers is a Mr. Seton Karr, a lion shooter, who showed me photographs
of his victims in various parts of the world. These amateur killers for
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1900] The Browning Letters 373
killing's sake, who compass the four continents of the earth at vast
labour and expense only to destroy, are a pitiful feature of the age we
live in. What have the lions and elephants in Africa done to Seton
Karr that he should travel 20,000 miles, and spend a fortune to ex-
tinguish their race? Men of his stamp, though he seems a, very worthy
man, need to be put under restraint, far more than half the lunatics in
our asylums. They do a thousand times more harm. There is no pre-
tence with him of science, missionary work, or Imperial politics, and
in so far he is respectably sincere. His work of destruction does not
injure his moral nature, but he is a dangerous criminal all the same, and
ought to be straight-waistcoated. I see that my letter to the ' Times '
of last winter has had the effect of causing r^^ations to be issued in
Egypt which, if carried out, will do something towards saving the small
wild birds there from extinction at the hand of European gunners. If
this succeeds, the British occupation will have done something to justify
itself in the eye of whatever force rules the world.
" I have been reading Mrs. Browning's letters. They are interesting
in many ways, but on the whole poor literature, lacking, as they do, all
wit. They are gossiping, too, in not the best sense, and commonplace,
far inferior to her poems, for which I have the highest admiration.
There is nothii^ in them which makes one love the writer, and very
few of them would be worth preserving if not written by so famous a
poet. Browning stands out well in the volume, and the few scraps that
are given of his writing show the superiority of the man, as an intel-
lectual power, over his wife. Her enthusiasms are poor stuff in prose.
There are a few meagre allusions in them to Robert Lytton, and one,
a pretty one, to Anne, but the whole series written in Italy is infected
with the sentimental vulgarity of the Anglo-American colony, which
had its headquarters in Storey's rooms in the Palazzo Barberini, and
which so nauseated me thirty and more years ago at Rome. Browning
himself was not exempt from it, though this does not appear in the
volume, for I remember him in his later years, a gossipy diner-out in
London and teller of second-rate funny stories. He did not on these
occasions show to advantage, though beyond question he was a thinker
of a very high order, the most intellectual poet we have perhaps ever
had.
"Another volume I have skimmed is Watts Dunton's absurd ro-
mance, * Aylwin,' a thing of the lowest order of childish melodrama.
Kiplii^s * Stalky ' is the third volume. Here, at least, we have vigour
and wit, though it is brutal in its realism and displays the seamy side
of our British schoolboy life without mercy. It needed courage to
print it. Kitchener, I fancy, has served in some sort as his model.
Lastly, I have read Tourgueneff's ' Smoke,' which is excellent.
" 7th Nov. — A day of great enjoyment. We landed at Alexandria
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374 Beauty of the Delta [1900
and came on by special train to Cairo, arriving at sunset, a light wind
blowing from the north, which puts one in the gayest of spirits. There
are few things more beautiful than the Delta at this time of year, or
where one sees more life from a railway carriage window. The ap-
pearance of plenty and happiness does one good after the squalor of
Europe. The country districts are still quite untouched by our Western
ugliness. On the whole journey from Alexandria I did not see a
European or a European dress, yet the fields were full of people, with
their buffaloes and donkeys and camels crowding the country roads,
men, women, and children gathering cotton in manifest enjoyment of
their lives. How different from our own agricultural England, where
one may travel for miles without seeing a living being and where all
labour is done silently, except at hay and harvest times. The splendid
wealth, too, of the crops, especially the maize, delights one. Then there
are the birds, I counted nine kingfishers, some blue, some pied, and as
many hoopoes, besides numbers of spur-winged plovers, which are far
more brilliant than our English ones, and kestrels, kites, hen harriers
and other large birds, to say nothing of the flocks of smaller ones. I
was met by my mare and Mutlak at the station, and rode through the
moonlit garden, which was alive with cicalas and so enjoyed its whole
beauty. Then, after a drink of fresh milk with Mutlak and a cup of his
scented coffee, we got on our mares again, and rode out into the desert.
It was as light as day with the full moon, and we were able to canter
our mares with their unshod feet noiselessly on for some miles till we
came in hearing of dogs barking, which showed us where Suliman^s
tent was. It was set behind a little hillock surrounded by sheep and
camels, and we had some difficulty in waking them, but Aida (his fav-
ourite wife) heard us, and looked out and then Suliman. Here, too,
seemed an abode of happiness as good as is to be found in the world.
It was eleven before we got back to Sheykh Obeyd, and we must have
ridden ten miles.
" There are three bits of news. Aared has revolted from Ibn Rashid
in Nejd ; the Sultan is building a railway from Damascus to Medina,
and a French company has bought up a tract of land beyond Kafr
Jamus to build a new town near us like Helwan, Heaven forbid ! There
are three fox earths in our stable yard, and I heard the jackals cry out-
side my window between one and two.
*'gth Nov. — Mohammed Abdu called to-day. He has seen the
Khedive, who came back from England highly pleased with the civility
shown him by the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the Government,
but as I had told him would be the case, there had been no talk of
Egyptian politics, though those at Constantinople had been mentioned.
He sent me messages of thanks through Abdu, and said he had in-
tended going to Crabbet according to my invitation, if his illness had
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I9CX)] Death of Oscar Wilde 375
not prevented him. Mohammed Abdu praised him for his power of
making himself agreeable when he chose, as he had done in England, but
said he had been most indiscreet afterwards, having told everything that
had happened there to the editor of the ' Mokattam,' who had straight-
way published it.
" George, according to a telegram, has got the Chief Secretaryship
of Ireland. I am glad of it for him as a step in his ambition, but it is
a thankless task, if he thinks to reconcile Ireland to English rule."
During the rest of the month my diary is mostly filled with an account
of explorations made in the eastern desert, interesting in themselves,
but not of sufficient importance to be here transcribed. We were back
at Sheykh Obeyd the first week of the month.
" joth Dec. — Oscar Wilde is reported dead. He was without ex-
ception the most brilliant talker I have ever come across, the most
ready, the most witty, the most audacious. Nobody could pretend to
outshine him, or even to shine at all in his company. Something of his
wit is reflected in his plays, but very little. The fine society of London
and especially the * Souls ' ran after him because they knew he could
always amuse them, and the pretty women allowed him great familiari-
ties, though there was no question of love-making. Physically, he was
repellant, though with a certain sort of fat good looks. There was a
kind of freckled coarseness in his colouring I have seen at times in
other Irishmen. I was never intimate with him, though on superficially
cordial terms when we met. He had been two or three times at our
Crabbet parties and was a member of our Qub, but only attended one
regular meeting. The last time I saw him was at that brilliant luncheon
party at Asquith's in Upper Grosvenor Street which I have already
described. His poetry, though nothing very wonderful, was good, es-
pecially his ' Ballad of Reading Gaol,' as was also a protest he wrote
on leaving prison against prison treatment, and if he had then begun a
decent life people would have forgiven him, but he returned to Paris
and to his dog's vomit and this is the end. I see it said in the papers
that he was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed, a strange
ending, and yet not strange I
"22nd Dec, — The old century is very nearly out, and leaves the
world in a pretty pass, and the British Empire is playing the devil in
it as never an empire before on so large a scale. We may live to see
its fall. All the nations of Europe are making the same hell upon earth
in China, massacring and pillaging and raping in the captured cities as
outrageously as in the Middle Ages. The Emperor of Germany gives
the word for slaughter and the Pope looks on and approves. In South
Africa our troops are burning farms under Kitchener's command, and
the Queen and the two Houses of Parliament, and the bench of bishops
thank God publicly and vote money for the work. The Americans are
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376 Shame of the Nineteenth Century [1900
spending fifty millions a year on slaughtering the Filipinos; the King
of the Belgians has invested his whole fortune on the Congo, where he
is brutalizing the negroes to fill his pockets. The French and Italians
for the moment are playing a less prominent part in the slaughter, but
their inactivity grieves tihem. The whole white race is revelling openly
in violence, as though it had never pretended to be Christian. God's
equal curse be on them all I So ends the famous nineteenth century into
which we were so proud to have been bom.
"25^/1 Dec, — Christmas Day. I have embodied some part of my
feeling in a letter to the ' Times,' if they will print it (' The Shame of
the Nineteenth Century'). The Boers have shown themselves alive
within the last week and have won two battles, capturing over 500 men,
and are now in full march forward into Cape Colony. The railroads
are cut behind them and Kitchener seems pretty well bewildered.
There is something like a panic in London for the last week of the old
century.
My old friend and neighbour here, Sheykh Hassan Abu Tawil, at
last is dead. I went to see him four days ago and found him lying
speechless with his eyes closed, in the little closet he used as his sleeping
room. He looked the picture of frail, worn-out humanity, with a Job-
like Eastern patience on his fine old countenance, over which the flies
were crawling as they doubtless crawled in his childhood in the tent
where he was bom. He died last night at midnight, and we heard the
women wailing a short mile away at daybreak, while we were breakfast-
ing on the roof. Now they have buried him, walking in beautiful pro-
cession, men and women, past our gates to his grave in the desert.
These country funerals are touching things, with the flags flying and
the chaunting and the wailing, dignified, and with something in them
of triumph as well as grief, which mitigates the ugliness of death. Qld
Sheykh Hassan has gone to his grave, full of years, the last of the old-
world Arab Sheykhs of Lower Egypt. His tribe, the Aiaide, were all
tent-dwellers when he was young, a wicked, turbulent lot, whom he
has controlled with a mild humanity much to his credit. With me he
has always been on more than friendly, on affectionate terms, and I
grieve for him as sincerely as his own people. It is a link broken for
me with a pleasant past which will not be joined again, for the fashion
of the old world passeth fast away at Sheykh Obeyd and we shall soon
be engulfed in the town.
" 31^ Dec, — I bid good-bye to the old century, may it rest in peace
as it has lived in war. Of the new century I prophesy nothing except
that it will see the decline of the British Empire. Other worse Em-
pires will rise perhaps in its place, but I shall not live to see the day.
It all seems a very little matter here in Egypt, with the Pyramids watch-
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igoo] Poor Wicked Century, Farewell! Z77
ing us as they watched Joseph, when, as a young man four thousand
years ago, perhaps in this very garden, he walked and gazed at the
sunset behind them, wondering about the future just as I did this even-
ing. And so, poor wicked nineteenth century, farewell I
END OF PART I
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX I
My Paris Diary of 1870
The fragment of Diary here printed was begun by me at Paris in the
early summer of 1870, a few weeks only before the rupture of relations
between France and Prussia. I already knew Paris well, having been a
member of the British Embassy there in Lord Cowley's time, and I had
remained in pleasant personal relations with my successors on the Em-
bassy staff, and so found myself in close touch with all that was going on
diplomatically. There were few days when I did not see one or other of
my Embassy friends. I had only just left the diplomatic service, and now
on my marriage I had come to Paris with my wife, meaning to make our
temporary home there, before settling down finally to country life in
Sussex. I had a romantic feeling about the great capital of the world's
pleasure and was deeply interested in all that concerned France when the
war broke out, and was fired with a corresponding sympathy when it re-
sulted in her unlooked for overthrow.
Of Germany, too, her adversary, I had had experience. Among the
many posts I had filled as attache and secretary I had been twice at Frank-
fort, a place at that time of first diplomatic importance as capital of the
Germanic Confederation and seat of the Diet, and had made there my
apprenticeship in Central European politics. When I was first appointed
to Frankfort in i860, Bismarck, though already noticed as leader of the
Junker party at Berlin, was still at the outset of his political career. The
old King Frederick William was still King of Prussia, and Bismarck was
not much in his good graces. His place at Frankfort had just been taken
by his rival. Count d'Usedom, who was in better favour at Court Use-
dom was a highly intellectual man, a leading member of the Liberal party
in Prussia, and his sympathies were with the movement for a United Gcr-
^ny, then a Liberal movement having for its acknowledged head the
Duke of Saxe Coburg, elder brother of our English Prince Consort, nor
was it till Frederick William's death that Bismarck's power with the Ho-
henzollerhs found its opportunity.
With Usedom I was intimate, spending most of my time at the Prussian
Legation, where I held in some sort the position of child of the house
through the favour of Madame d'Usedom, the good-natured Scotchwoman
who figures in Bismarck's memoirs under the name of Olympia as his
bete noire, the subject of his unsparing jests. Both she and Usedom were
too outspoken to please the Bismarckian ideas of diplomacy; and in their
society, though I took little interest as yet in the great world's politics,
I learned much that I have not forgotten of Berlin policy and of the
hopes and fears of German patriotism in which the Hohenzollems under
381
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382 Appendix I
the old King had as yet refused to play a part I remember a visit paid
to Frankfort by tiie Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor Wil-
liam I, and his accession a little later to the Prussian throne, which set
Bismarck securely in the saddle and began that intrigue which resulted in
the war with Denmark over Sleswig Holstein, as to which Usedom was
daily eloquent.
I have dreamlike memories, too, of many hours — some pleasant, some
wearisome — spent in attendance on the Princes and Princesses of the
Royal and Electoral Houses to whom we at the English L^^tion were
accredited, including Princess Alice of Hesse Darmstadt, our Queen Vic-
toria's daughter, and a vast number of cousinly allied royalties assembled
one summer at the family chateau of Rumpenheim, where I had the priv-
ilege of paying an early court to our future Queen Alexandra while she
was still a girl of seventeen, and her sister, afterwards Empress of Russia,
pretty but plainly dressed maidens of no acknowledged importance, though
we at the Legation had been secretly apprised of the intended marriage
of the elder with our Prince of Wales.
All these incidents were unconscious elements in my diplomatic educa-
tion. My thoughts, however, at the time ran more on poetry than politics,
and what interest I took in German thought lay rather in the direction
of science which was beginning to perplex me, for Darwin's "Origin of
Species" had only just been published.
My second appointment in Frankfort found the Bismarckian policy in
full swing. After three years' absence at other posts — Madrid, Paris,
and Lisbon — I had returned in 1866 in time to witness the great duel in
the Diet between Prussia and Austria shortly after to be decided at Sa-
dowa, which displayed Bismarck as the leading force of his generation.
Of the great man himself I have but a single personal recollection, that
of a couple of hours spent in his society at tea alone with Lady Malet.
He was then still an object of dislike and even ridicule at Frankfort, but
already recognized by Lady Malet, a very clever woman, to whom he had
paid a certain court while at the Frankfort Legation, and who already
saw in him the man of genius he was soon to show himself. My memory
of him is of a tall, distinguished personage, still slight in figure, who, hav-
ing been told about me by our hostess favourably as having some faculty
of verse, talked pleasantly and well on literature and science in excellent
English for a couple of hours, affecting a certain Anglomania, where he
touched on politics. He showed himself thus at his best, and left me
with a feeling of the heroic such as a young man gives to one already
beginning to be famous and who had been kind to him.
All this, however, had failed to give me when I left Frankfort after
Sadowa any enthusiasm for Germany, and when the war of 1870 broke
out I was strongly anti-Prussian. My connection with die Paris Embassy
in the days of the Napoleonic glory had made me a partisan of France,
and I had come to look upon Germany as intellectually the home of bar-
barism given up to the grosser forms of social life and clumsy in its poli-
tics as in all else.
With these few words I leave my diary to tell its own stoiy.
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My Paris Diary of 1870 383
"Paris, 2jth May, 1870.— I have taken the first floor of No. 204, Rue
de Rivoli, at 8,000 francs rent My proprietor is M. Desfontaines, one of
Louis Philippe's councillors. He is an old man who lives at Noissy, and
his house is managed by his concierge, whom we call the faux bon homme.
He sits with his wife all day under the arcade, and the people of the
quarter dislike him because he has made 100,000 francs. Every Monday
morning he brings us from the country a country bunch of flowers.
" To-day I went with my cousin Francis Currie to the other side of the
Seine for furniture. We went to one Recapet's, a bric-&-brac dealer, and
having to ask the way I inquired of a shopwoman in the faubourg, a
dealer in religious prints, the road to the ' Passage Marie.' .' The Passage
S** Marie,' she answered, correcting me. There is still religion in France !
Yesterday Francis Currie saw a dead man fished out of the river near die
Pont Royal. A woman in the crowd asked what it was all about. 'A
naked man,' my cousin answered. 'If it is only that!' said the woman.
I afterwards drove with my wife to the Jardin des Plantes, and back
through the Faubourg St. Antoine. Coming home we saw the carriages
of ' Le Singe ' as they call their Sovereign.
"30^/1 May. — ^We drove down on Saturday to Chantilly by the old
Royal Road passing through St. Denis and Luzarches. There are some
fine views on the way, but the road is still paved nearly the whole distance.
In the Forest we noticed two large oaks on the boundary between Oise
and Seine. These are the only trees more than twenty [jtc] years old.
The races on Sunday were pleasant and the weather fine. A horse called
Bigarreau won the principal stakes.
"2nd June. — To Fontainebleau to play tennis. Our party was Frank
Lascelles and his wife, Henry Wodehouse and Mr. and Mrs. Fred Ricardo.
Lascelles and I played from two till half-past six. The paumier, Garcin,
is eighty-three years old. In his time he has played tennis with Welling-
ton and others of the Waterloo heroes. * Napoleon Bonaparte,' he told us,
' played in the tennis court at Fontainebleau, but did not show much apti-
tude. II n'avait pas meme des dispositions. Quant a Wellington, il ne
faisait que s'y amuser, il venait de gagner la bataille de Waterloo.' (The
old man hobbled into the court to play us a chouette, supported by a
granddaughter, who picked up and handed him the balls. He pretended
at first not to be able to send the ball over the net, but with five francs
on the set he soon recovered his skill and won his money. Anne made
an excellent drawing of the court while we were playing.)
"3rd June. — Two great fires have taken place, the one at Fontaine-
bleau, which destroyed a large part of the Forest, the other at Constanti-
nople, a thousand houses burnt at Pera, including the English Embassy.
"People in Paris seem to be becoming aware how grossly they have
been cajoled in the matter of Liberal reform. I myself thought three
months ago that it was sincere, and I was only surprised that so long-
sighted a policy should have been adopted by the Bonapartes, who have
always held by small expedients. For the future of the dynasty there
could have been no greater folly than a sham conversion to constitutional-
ism and a repetition of the old trick of the plebiscite. Another such vic-
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384 Appendix I
tory and the dynasty is lost. They complain already that OUivier is noth-
ing else than Rou^re over again, and that personal government is precisely
what it was last year. I care nothing for all this, not being one of the
Singe's subjects.
"Sth June. — We dined last night at the British Embassy, thirty covers.
Amongst the guests were some of the new French Ministry — Grammont,
M^e, Richard, also Monsaud, Under Secretary at the Affaires Etrangeres.
Lord Lyons keeps great state at the Embassy, with Sheffield managing
the household, and Edward Malet for Private Secretary. They all three
go out driving in a barouche every afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne,
with a dog named Toby on the fourth seat. The Parisians mock at it
calling Malet Me petit brun,' and Sheffield 'le petit blond.' The Duke
and Duchess of Montmorency were at the dinner. He is the hero of a
rather mean adventure. Being by birth a Perigord, he solicited through
his wife, who was an Aguado and partly Spanish, one of Empress Eu-
genie's set, a grant of the Duchy of Montmorency, the direct line of the
Dues de Montmorency having failed, though there were still collaterals.
One of these, the Comte de Montmorency, who now represents the family,
scratched out the new Duke's arms from the panel of his carriage the
first time he drove up in it to the Jockey Club. It led to a duel in which
the Comte was slightly wounded, and the Club, indignant at the afTair,
expelled the Duke from their house. On this the Duke appealed to the
Court, the Empress happening to be Regent at the time, and the police
received orders to close the doors of the Jockey Club if they persisted
in the expulsion. The Club succumbed, and so the matter ended. [I was
constantly in and out of the Chancery at our Embassy during all this time,
having through my former official connection with the Embassy still many
friends there, Lascelles, Malet, Saumarez, Claremont, and Atlee, thus I
heard the news pretty regularly as the Embassy heard it.]
" The * Figaro ' has published a charge. Villemessent, the editor, b^ns
by announcing that he has sold his paper to the Irreconcilables, and articles
and letters follow, signed by the chiefs of the revolution. The best is a
piece in verse, purporting to be by Victor Hugo in which his style is well
imitated. Half the town has been taken in by the hoax.
** nth June. — There is news from Lisbon of disturbances, Saldanha
being the hero of these. I used to see this curious old Field Marshal
very frequently during the summer I spent at Cintra in 1865. He was a
poseur of the first water, and nature had given him a head and figure
exactly suited to the part of ancien mHitaire, which he had been playing
ever since the day of the Peninsular War. He is now eighty-five. Twenty
years ago he made a revolution in Portugal very like the present one. He
got a few regiments together, and when the King marched out against
him with the rest of the Portuguese army these at once joined the Marshal,
and the King had to gallop back alone with his A.D.C.'s to Lisbon.
Saldanha had no political principles, but being a restless, vain old man,
could not bear to be forgotten. I saw him again at Rome in 1867, on
his way in uniform to the Jesuit church in Easter week, his whole coat,
front and back, a mass of stars and orders. He is the most completely
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My Paris Diary of 1870 385
decorated personage in Europe. Also he has the pretension of universal
knowledge, and has written a book or pamphlet on every possible subject
from Pisciculture to the Immaculate Conception. At Cintra he had a
garden of acclimatisation. His wife, the widow of a British navy surgeon,
was a worthy Englishwoman on whom he imposed absolute silence in
society so as to conceal her defects of educaticMi.
"Another revolution is an absurd one at Monaco, where the Prince
heritier, who married Lady Mary Hamilton last spring, has slapped his
wife's face, and asks for a divorce. The late Duke of Hamilton, hef
father, so well known here at Paris as the Empress's cousin and intimate
friend, with many faults of conduct, was a grand seigneur. His worst
folly was his marriage with a Baden Princess who despised his Scotch
nobility and gave him a heavy set of German heirs. He met his death
by slipping down the narrow stairs of the Maison Dore6 where he had
been supping with Henry Howard and a couple of women after an opera
ball. The Empress learning what had happened hurried to his rooms and
was with him till he died.
'' Dejazet is retiring from the stage on which she has been popular for
nearly seventy years, having begun as an infant prodigy at the age of five.
" Yet another scandal has been one in the Spanish Royal Family. The
ex-King's pension has been left unpaid, and he sues the ex-Queen Ysabel
for arrears.
" I have bought a pair of horses of Mrs. Lyne Stevens for 4,000 francs.
She was on the stage, and her husband dying left her an immense fortune
which Claremont, our military attache here, manages for her at a salary
of £1,000 a year.
" 26/A June, — The Orleans princes have addressed a letter to the French
Parliament demanding their readmission into France. Courbet, the painter,
has refused the legion of honour. The Paris papers consider the refusal
a miracle of virtue.
"28//1 June, — The claim of the Orleans princes has been refused
through fear, probably, that they should go on to demand their property in
France confiscated by the Republic. The Chantilly Estate is said to be
worth 280,000,000 francs. Among the wills and bequests I see that this
Estate, bought of the Due de Nemours, has just been left by Sir Edmund
Antrobus to his son, held I suppose fictitiously for the Orleans family.
"Yesterday morning died Lord Clarendon, our Secretary for Foreign
Affairs. I met him four years ago when I was staying with the Usedoms
in the Villa Capponi at Florence, a sleek white little old man, with a
pulse, it was said for some years at forty, and an agreeable old-fashioned
manner. His brother, Charles Villiers, I met several times at the Malet's
at Frankfort in i860, a very brilliant talker, who was kind to me, and
interested in my young man's chatter. Their mother was the Mrs.
Villiers of the Byron correspondence.
" 1st July. — To Versailles to see whether, the historic tennis court there
was in a fit state for play. A nice litle girl in charge of the place told us
that an order had just come from the Ministry for its restoration. The
court is miserably out of repair, the floor chipped, and the plaster falling
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386 Appendix I
from the walls, the brass plate commemorating the oath of 1789 was taken
down by Dalmand the paumier some years ago, and remise d neuf. The
court had not been used for four years, and there are but a few rotten
old balls to play with, but the court was played in this summer.
"Queen Ysabel has signed her abdication publicly of the Crown of
Spain, and the Prince of Asturias, her son, becomes King Alphonso XII.
On the same day a rival Prince of Asturias was bom to Don Carlos at
Geneva. The Pope has sent his blessing to them both. I well remember
the Court of Queen Ysabel, and the hesa manos ceremonies in which the
little Prince Alfonso figured with his parents, set in a tall gilt chair,
having his hand kissed fast asleep. He had in those days a most beautiful
little Andalusian pony, a miniature horse, but only twelve hands high,
with silky mane and tail sweeping the grotmds, legs fine as a gazelle's.
When the revolution came which drove the Bourbons from Spain, Prim
gave the pony to his son. I met General Prim in the summer of 1863 at
the baths of Panticosa, a pale, ugly little man, with no kind of distinction,
suffering from an internal disease which gave him constant pain, half his
political energy, they said, was caused by this. General Prim was the
leader then of the Progresista Party. He was at the baths for his health
with his aide-de-camp, General Milans del Bosch."
The abdication here mentioned of the exiled Queen of Spain was the
occasion of the quarrel between France and Prussia a week or two later,
which resulted in the disastrous war, the capitulation of Sedan and the
overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty. I was, at the time of writing,
strongly anti-Bonapartist, a reader of the " Lanteme " and other journals
of that type, more than my diary shows. In this I shared the general
view of the Parisian mob, and even of the bourgeoisie who were sick of
the Empire. The gossip of the Paris streets was retailed to me daily by
my old bonne Julie, who had a curious faculty for gathering news as she
was constantly wandering about the streets where she had become a well-
known character by reason of her kindness to birds and beasts, and suf-
ferers of all kinds. With the sergeants-de-ville of the Tuileries quarter
she was a favourite, for she was always ready to help in cases of sickness,
or accident, coming within their province. A Bretonne peasant by birth,
(she had had an uncle a priest, massacred during the great Revolution
on the steps of the altar, while he was celebrating mass). Her political
prepossessons were strongly Orleanist, as became one who had been in
their domestic service, for she had been housemaid in her young days
under Louis Philippe in the Chateau, as she called the Tuileries, and
knew every room in it from cellar to garret. Another informant of the
same class was my cousin, Francis Currie's bonne Julienne, a pendant of
my Julie. She had a German husband, waiter in a restaurant, and brought
us gossip from the German point of view, also an amusing woman. To
these two may be added our man-servant Desire who appears from time
to time in the diaries.
" 4th July, — The ' Constitutionel ' publishes the news that Prim has
offered the Crown of Spain to one of the HohenzoUems, a brother of
Prince Charles of Roumania, and that the candidature is accepted. On
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My Paris Diary of 1870 387
this a general outcry from all sides. A Hc^enzoUem, it is said, at the
Escurial will complete the wild beast show of Europe. We have already
seen a Bonaparte at Fontainebleau, a Savoy at Venice, a Hapsburg in
Mexico, to-day the rage is for German Kings, the most wonderful phenom-
enon of the age. Yesterday we drove to St. Germain with a mixed company
of Americans, French, Jews, and Brazilians, to dine there on the terrace.
The event of the day was Grammont's speech in the Chambers. He
declared that if the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern was
not withdrawn 'France would know how to act without hesitation and
without weakness.' This being considered a declaration of war with
Prussia was tumultuously applauded by all parties in the House. The
move is considered an excellent one for the Bonapartists, who need a
show of energy to cover their humiliations of the past four years, for the
first place in Europe is every day becoming more plainly Prussian.
Whether the Germans are beat in the war, or the Emperor Napoleon, I shall
feel some satisfaction. St. Germain looked lovely as it always does."
Though my diary does not record it, I remember well the excitement
there was among us that evening at the news which had been brought down
by Frank Lascelles, or some other diplomatist of our party, and how in
the beautiful summer's night we walked upon the terrace after dinner,
and looked across the river towards Paris, and how someone suggested,
though we none of us had much misgiving as to the forttinate issue of the
war, the possible trouble there might be for the fair city which we loved.
Our imagination for a moment encircled it with a girdle of armed men,
and a gulf seemed opened suddenly at our feet of unknown adversity. Yet,
as I have said, none of us, not even those who ought to have known it, had
a suspicion of the unreadiness of France for a serious campaign. There
had been a comparative lack of interest in the Paris newspapers at the
first announcement of the Hohenzollern candidature, which was treated by
them as only another rebuff for the Imperial diplomacy, and it was not till
Grammont made his valorous speech, and after him Ollivier that a cry,
d Berlin, began to be raised.
"Sth July. — ^There has been a report that Prim has abandoned his
Hohenzollern, but this is not true. The German papers affect not to treat
the French menace as serious. At Madrid the Cortes are to assemble for
the vote on the 20th. If the present candidature is not withdrawn before
that date the position of France will become less simple.
" To-night I start for Southampton to meet my brother Francis, leaving
Anne here. He is returning from Australia via the Cape and Madeira."
[A fortnight's break occurs here in my diary caused by my absence
from Paris.]
**27th July, — I have been more than a fortnight in England, and my
journal has been interrupted, but I will recapitulate the events which have
led to the declaration of war. In answer to the French demand of a with-
drawal of Prince Leopold's candidature Prim denied the right of France
to interfere. At first all previous knowledge of the candidature was denied
in Prussia, but it soon appeared that King William had given his assent to
die Prince's acceptance. But on the matter being pressed by the French
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388 Appendix I
Government William withdrew his consent, not as King, but as head of the
HohenzoUems, saying at the same time that if Spain still chose to elect
the Prince he would not as King of Prussia interfere. Nevertheless
France insisted on a formal disavowal of the plan by the Prussian Govern-
ment Things being in this position, to the astonishment of all, Prince
Anthony, Leopold's father, writes to the Spanish Government withdrawing
his son's candidature, Leopold himself remaining silent, and the Prussian
Government professing not to know even where he is. In France Leopold
is thought to have gone incognito to Madrid, as his brother Charles in like
circumstances went incognito to Roumania. I have no doubt in my mind
that some such stroke was contemplated by Bismarck, as Usedom has often
told me that Prince Charles' expedition was sanctioned by the Prussian
Government, and that it was Bismarck's policy to raise up anti-French
influences in every corner of Europe, in Greece, in Italy, and in the Turkish
Provinces. In England it was very generally believed that Prince Anthony
had settled the matter, and the 'Times' sang a Te Deum of peace, the
stocks rose prodigiously in London, and two days after, Sunday the i6th
of July, as I was sitting in the balcony after dinner in Belgrave Square
(number 44, my cousin Percy Wyndham's house), I heard the news
hawkers bawling out, ' Declaration of War.' A story had appeared in the
' Times ' that morning, relating that M. Benedetti the French Ambassador
at Berlin had accosted King William contrary to etiquette in the Public
Garden at Ems, and had there again urged the claims of France, and that
the King turning on his heel had told his aide-de-camp to inform the
Ambassador that he had no more to say to him. This story has since been
denied, but it has been made use of both in France and Germany to inflame
popular passions. On Monday morning the ' Times ' announced the war,
and declared that the French Emperor had committed the greatest crime
Europe had witnessed for thirty years. The ' Times ' has since persisted
that the war is one of aggression on the part of France with the Rhine
Provinces for object, but I have never met for years past a Frenchman
who has not laughed at the idea of taking possession of the Rhine, or who
would have given a fig to annex. People expected a battle would be
fought at once, but ten days have passed, and no blow has been struck.
"This morning the 'Times' gives us a new surprise, the draft of a
treaty between France and Prussia (undated) in which the annexation of
Belgium and Luxemburg by France is agreed on if necessary by force of
arms. The draft has no appearance of authenticity, its style being .unlike
that usual in treaties, and the French used is poor. Some such scheme
may have been talked over between the French Emperor and Bismarck,
soon after the late war (the war of Sadowa), but I cannot conceive its
having been thus put on paper. I expect the French Government to deny
the authenticity of the document, and perhaps ultimately they make make
a counter-charge against Prussia of designs on Holland. Feeling in
England is pretty well balanced between France and Prussia, but people
fail to see that France is in reality fighting for her existence. This is no
war of Government against Government, but of race against race, of
France the last of the great Latin nations against Germany. If Germany
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My Paris Diary of 1870 389
is beaten she will recover, if France she will go the way of the other
Latins. The Radical Party in England side with Prussia because they see
in it a triumph of atheism and socialism in Europe. France after many
years goes forth to the Rhine singing the Marseillaise in the cause of
order and religion. It is strange.
" 2Sth July. — We drove this morning to St Cloud to see the Emperor
and his son start for the war. He went off by the back door, and nobody
saw him go. The flag was pulled down exactly at ten o'clock. The
Emperor has his headquarters at Metz.
" 2gth July, — It is decided that the French garrison is to leave Rome.
M. Visconti Venosta, the Italian Foreign Minister, has engaged to protect
the Holy See from the Garibaldians ; the Pope, however, is I am sure quite
able to take care of himself at Rome. The Foreign Legion is, or was,
when I saw it in 1866 as fine a body of men as any in the south of Europe,
they did not need the French chassepots to beat the Garibaldians at
Montana; however, we shall see. The announcement of the new dogma
of Papal infallibility has passed almost unnoticed after all, though there
are rumours of a schism in Germany.
" ^oth July. — To-day we have a full explanation of the projected treaty
[that published in the * Times ' of the 27th, about Bel^um and the Rhine
provinces]. Benedetti writes to the official journal, stating that soon after
the war of 1866, being one day with Bismarck at Berlin, and talking as
they had often talked of proposed territorial changes in Europe, Bismarck
said: 'What is the good of always talking, why not put our ideas in
writing.' Thereupon giving Benedetti a pen and paper, he dictated the
famous draft and kept it, as he said, to show the King, a stroke worthy of
the golden age of diplomacy. I know positively from Usedom, who was in
the thick of affairs in Prussia during the war of 1866, that Bismarck
promised the Rhine provinces, or, at least, those south of the Moselle, to
France as the price of her neutrality, but never with the intention of
keeping the promise. Benedetti must have been a great donkey to be
gulled by Bismarck in this way, but the story he gives of the transaction
bears the impress of truth. It explains what was so odd in the draft,
namely, that in quoting the names and titles of the high contracting parties
the King of Prussia's name stands first. Bismarck is the most wonderful
man of his age, but he has outwitted himself as well as Benedetti here.
Public opinion in England is veering round from Prussia; and Belgium,
which is most interested, acquits France in the matter.
"A skirmish has taken place on the frontier, where strangely enough
an Englishman in the Baden service was killed, the first victim of the war,
his name Winslow. The addresses of the Emperor and the King to their
troops are both published. The King appeals to God the Emperor to
Glory, quite in the old style.
"Yesterday we drove to Versailles through the Forest of Meudon, a
lovely old deserted road, never used apparently since Versailles became a
royal residence and the new high road was carried through Sevres.
" Lascelles tells me the true history of the message sent by King William
to M. Benedetti ' Allez trouvez son Excellence,' the King said to his aide-
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390 Appendix I
de-camp, ' tt priez le de venir baiser mon c — ^1/ He also related an anec-
dote of Bismarck illustrative of his equally Rabelaisian style of humour."
[This anecdote is omitted as unprintable.]
" Aug. 2nd. — Went last night to the Opera to hear ' Masaniello.' Be-
tween the third and fourth acts the stage represented the French camp,
and Faure in the uniform of the Garde Mobile sang die ' Rhin AUemand ' :
Nous Tavons eu votre Rhin Allemand. The Marseillaise was then called
for and Marie Sasse came forward with the tricolor and gave it amid great
enthusiasm. It was the most emotional thing I ever saw on the stage.
Faure afterwards was called for and sang the Marseillaise in his turn,
kneeling down at the last verse, and wrapping himself in the flag. All
the house stood up while it was being sung. The effect was lessened to
me by the uniform and by the tricolour having on it a little gilt eagle, but
in spite of this I have seldom been so touched. [The Marseillaise was
then being sung for the first time in Paris, after having been proscribed
there for twenty years.]
" yd Aug. — It is officially announced that a division of the French army
has captured the heights above Saarbruck and driven the Prussians out of
the town, Saarbruck being just over the frontier. The Emperor and the
Prince Imperial were present and under fire.
"S//r, Aug., 9 p.m. — Learned at the Embassay that the Prussians had
taken Vissembourg yesterday and that General Douai had been killed, one
gun captured. They told me a battle was being fought to-day, the news
hitherto rather unfavourable to the French. MacMahon had 80,000 men
under his command, so it should be a great battle. [This proved to be the
battle of Worth.] I have arranged in case of a defeat to send my wife
and Miss Noel [her cousin Alice Noel who was staying with us] to Havre
with the carriage and horses. I shall stay here myself. Paris has been
very silent this evening. I told Julie at dinner that the Emperor had been
killed. ' Quant i cela,' she said, ' si je vois aujourd'hui passer son enterre-
ment je ne dirai que tant mieux.' The weather since noon has been sultry
with an attempt at thunder. There is a heavy black cloud over the sky
to-night.
"6th Aug. — Last night at half-past ten, hearing that something was
happening on the boulevard I went out. Bands of men were marching up
and down singing patriotic songs, the boulevard crowded, people talking in
knots. There was the rumour of a defeat. (According to the 'Times'
the French had been driven out of Vissemberg, one gun taken and 500
unwounded prisoners, also the French camp taken. Vissembourg is a few
miles from Rastadt, where the Prussian Crown Prince has his headquar-
ters.) I sat down outside Bignon's to read the 'National/ and was joined
there by Malet and Lascelles. They are both staunch Frenchmen. They
considered it looked very bad there being no news. They knew a severe
battle was being fought that afternoon. I dreamed all night of Prussians
and their victories. God rot them I
" This morning I went to the Embassy to volunteer my services to the
Giancery, as they have more work there than they can do. They seemed
to think that after all there had been no fighting yesterday. At half-past
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My Paris Diary of 1870 391
two Julie rushed into the room telling me that a great victory had been
won, the Prince of Prussia and 20,000 prisoners taken. It was too good
to be true, but flags were being put up everywhere in the streets. I ordered
out the carriage and drove down the Rue de Rivoli eastwards and on round
the boulevards. The Faubourg St. Antoine and all the east end of Paris
was a mass of flags and excitement. After the Boulevard des Italiens,
however, on our way back these thinned and at the Madeleine all was
bare as on ordinary days, till on arriving at the Embassy, we found that
the whole thing was a gigantic canard. Somebody had posted up a tele-
gram with this news at the Bourse, and in a couple of hours the excite-
ment had reached every comer of Paris. In the afternoon an attack was
made by the mob on the Bourse and its frequenters. The man who had
posted up the telegram was nearly torn to pieces, and the Jews and other
rascals who were there had the coats torn off their backs.
*yth Aug, — This morning the news seems bad. The 'Figaro' says
that it is a time for calm and dignity.
"4 o'clock — MacMahon has been defeated in a great battle at Reich-
shoffen [Worth]. He has retreated on Nancy; his communications with
Metz were cut, but seem now to be restored. On the same day yesterday
General Frossart was driven out of Saarbruck. The Emperor in his
bulletin says that great sacrifices must be made by the country. There is
great depression in Paris. A band of respectable people came past our
house shouting 'La patrie en danger! Dei fusils! A la fronti^re!' At
this moment a great crowd is collecting round the Tuileries. Julie has
gone out to see what the news is. Garemont says the French have been
outnumbered, that they had not 200,000 men in the field. The Empress is
at the Tuileries. People begin to talk ominously about the present dynasty.
Dalmand at the Tennis Court [he was third paumier to the tennis court
of which I was a member close by in the north-east comer of the Tuileries
Gardens] says he has only one wish, to die by a Pmssian bullet 1
" Yesterday a mob assembled at the Place Vendome and forced Ollivier
to make a speech from his balcony. He promised the news should be
placarded every two hours. Paris is declared in a state of siege. I have
ordered the carriage for ten o'clock to-morrow to drive to Nantes, whence
Anne and Miss Noel will go on to Deauville. I shall retum by train. I
am afraid of the horses being seized for the war.
"5 o'clock, — Julie has come back to say that the Emperor's despatch
was that he did not know where MacMahon was. This looks very bad.
"The battle where Frossart was beaten was Forbach. MacMahon's
they call Freshvillers. If MacMahon has been cut off we may expect the
French centre to be attacked on both sides and probably beaten some-
where in front of Metz.
**%th August, — No news this morning. MacMahon seems to have
joined the main army before Metz. The Parisians are rapidly becoming
demoralized, the Bonapartists blaming the Republicans, the Republicans
the Bonapartists, and both blaming Fortune. All parties seem inclined to
lay down their arms directly the army is beaten. I was not wrong in
believing that twenty years of Oesarism had destroyed virtue in France.
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392 Appendix I
It is well to talk of 1792, but the Republicans then were other men than
now, and when their army was beaten the people fought on. To-day
French patriotism is limited to killing the enemy. Nobody cares to be
killed. Paris will probably open her gates to the Germans, and having
consented to a disgraceful peace she will then settle matters with her
rulers. I have sent Anne, Miss Noel, and the horses to Deauville to wait
till events declare themselves. There were no particular disturbances last
night. The English are flying from Paris. I believe Paris to be impreg-
nable if held by a sufficient force. It is also too large to invest. If the
remains of the army after a defeat were to throw itself into the capital
it might form a nucleus for the whole nation. Let them proclaim a
Republic if they will or take one of the Orleans princes for king, but let
them continue the war. France can never make peace on her defeat or
she must perish. The windows of the Tuileries were lighted all last
night. It is remarkable that not a word of S3rmpathy with the Empress
Eugenie can be heard.
" 7 o'clock. — It is reported, but not officially, that King William crossed
the Rhine last night with 120,000 men at Colmar. I have been playing
tennis with Lascelles. He takes a brighter view of things than I do. He
thinks that a defeat would not end the war, but that a Republic will be
proclaimed under Gambetta or Jules Simon and the war be carried on.
He thinks that if the Prussians enter Paris they will find a Republic there,
and will place the Comte de Paris on the throne, but I am certain no
Orleans Prince would accept the Crown at such hands. Perhaps Napoleon
will put himself in the hands of the Prussians. Who knows, perhaps
Bismarck might re-seat him on his throne. All the foreign Ministers have
been to Lord Lyons to ask what they shall do in case a Republic is pro-
claimed. Metternich (the Austrian Ambassador) has sent his Pauline
(Mme. de Metternich) to Calais. As we came out of the tennis court we
saw Persigny driving past in his Victoria towards the Tuileries.
" 12 o'clock (midnight), — Dined on the Boulevard. Great crowds of
people. Saw a carriage attacked by twenty or thirty people, a man stand-
ing up in it looking very pale and waving his arms. A troop of dragoons
came down the Boulevard and people cried, 'A la fronti^re!* This is
because they think no troops should remain at Paris. The dragoons trotted
on to the Louvre and are now in the Carrousel.
"The Prince Imperial has come back and it is said the Emperor was
also there (in the Tuileries) ; some think he is there now. Ollivier is
also supposed to be in hiding at the Palace, though a cordon of police
guards his house in the Place Vendome at night. Julienne's husband, who
is head waiter at the Hotel Meurice, told Julie that the Comte de Paris
was there five days ago. I believe he will be in Paris again as President
or King before a month is out. Sedition is talked openly and by respec-
table persons of all sorts. The * Soir ' used guarded but very plain
language to-night and I believe it is certain that the deputies of the Left
signed a document requesting the Bonaparte family to withdraw from
France. If the French can get rid of this incubus they may find heart
to fight their battle out. The Emperor has shown himself in this crisis
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My Paris Diary of 1870 393
what I have always held him to be, an irresolute man, incapable of any
great sustained policy. I believe him to have permitted Grammont's
original speech on the HohenzoUem question with the intention and full
expectation of the matter being compromised, but the country carried him
away and he was obliged to follow. He has been carried fairly off his
legs ; even a great victory could now hardly keep him on his throne. II a
gene la patrie/' [What I did not know at the time of writing this was that
Napoleon III was incapacitated from playing the difficult part demanded
of him in the crisis by an attack of the stone, which caused him great
suffering. The decision, therefore, between peace and war had been left
practically in the Empress's hands, to whom the blame of the decision
rightly belongs.]
" I am more hopeful of the National honour to-night The army beaten,
the French ought still to have heart to win the campaign, holding as they
do the sea [Prussia at that time had almost no navy]. They can in time
starve the enemy out. As I sat at dinner the poet Morin came to speak to
me. He was very earnest in asking my candid opinion on the state of
France. He seemed much hnoHone, but I noticed that he ate a capital
dinner.
"9/I1 August, 12 o'clock (noon). — At the Embassy they talk of a
Republic under the dictatorship of General Trochu. I confess I never
heard of him before. The Chamber opens to-day. Great bands of blouses
have marched there, and a great band also of police. They say the Oppo-
sition will demand the immediate arming of all the citizens of Paris in-
scribed on the Electoral Roll. This morning Julie came in to me with my
little dog Rachael dying in her arms.
" Something must have happened to the Emperor; he has either run away
or abdicated or been shot. These ideas pass through one's mind. No one
ever mentions him.
" 2 p,m. — They are shutting the Tuileries garden gates.
" 6 p,m, — I ran out and found the gates shut, but at the Tennis Court
gate by saying I was a sociStaire they let me in, and looking over the balus-
trade of the terrace, saw some thousands of people collected in the Place
de la Concorde and on the Bridge- in front of the Corps L^slatif . Biboche
and Serafin and Dalmand, the three paumiers, are absurdly impressioned by
the course of events. Biboche is a Bonapartist, Dalmand a patriot without
colour, Etienne, the marker, fancies the Republic, and S6rafin has tout
simplement a wife at home with the scarlet fever. All look upon France
as lost. At three o'clock we were turned out of the Tennis Court, and
the garden was cleared of nurses and lovers. I went and sat in the Place
de la Concorde for an hour, till driven in by a thunderstorm, which
stopped any revolution, if such was intended.
" A band came by our house just now, singing, with a ridiculous young
negro marching in front flourishing a wooden sword. I am beginning to
tire of the crisis. General Leboeuf has resigned his command, Bazaine
becomes Commander-in-Chief. [It was Leboeuf who, when the Emperor
asked him whether the army was completely ready for war, answered
' Jusqu^au dernier houton' ]
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" 12 p.m. (midnight). — On a motion by Jules Favre for the organization
and arming of the National Guard throughout France the Government
have been beaten by 243 to 21. A second proposal for the formation of a
Committee of National Defence in the House was also thrown out. In
consequence of the first vote the Ministry has resigned. Count Palikao
(General Montauban) is charged with the formation of a new Ministry.
This is considered as being virtually an overthrow of the Empire. It is
expected that the new Ministry will declare the House the supreme author-
ity, and that the Imperial Family will be invited to leave France. Marshal
Bazaine has accepted the command in chief. General Changarnier the
Republican has been received by the Emperor at Metz and has appeared
in public with him. [Changarnier had been a rival candidate to Louis
Napoleon when they stood for the Presidentship of the Republic in 1850.]
" I dined with Lascelles and met M. de Hubner (the Austrian). He is a
violent hater of Prussia, but declares that she must crush France. I cannot
think that if only Frenchmen will be true to themselves, if the army can
throw itself into Paris, all may yet be well. Austria, Denmark, and even
England may think it the moment to intervene; Prussia cannot support a
long war with all her ports blockaded. But if the French accept the terms
offered on a defeat they will be lost for ever. Imperial France has no
virtue to fall back upon; a Republic is their best chance; it is the only
name that has a power to rouse.
"When I came home Julie talked of her recollections of the Emperor.
She remembered seeing him when he came back to Paris in 1852, and,
when kneeling on the steps of the Madeleine, he was blessed by the cure.
As he rode from the church and entered the gate leading from the Place de
la Concorde into the Tuileries garden, a crown of flowers was let down
from the upper part of the grille upon his head, and the people called out
for the first time, * Vive I'Empereur ! ' Three weeks later he was crowned
at Notre Dame. She also talked of his marriage, and Julie knew the
details because she was in Henry Howard's service, and he was Mrs.
Gould's lover.* Mademoiselle Monti jo was taken to Compicgne by Mrs.
Gould, though she was not invited, and there the Emperor saw her out
riding. She was very beautiful, and had a wonderfully fair complexion.
The Emperor, although he knew she was the Marquis d'Aguado's mistress,
had a caprice for her, and wanted to make her leave Aguado, but she said
he must marry her and he did so, in spite of his friends and Ministers.
He said in his excuse that having, as they told him, done so much for
France, France must do this for him. According to Julie, Napoleon and
Eugenie made mauvais manage at first, but the Empress had never been
reproached for misconduct since the marriage. The child, the Prince
Imperial, was certainly hers, as any one could see by comparing her photo-
graph with the boy's. People had said that he was not, but this was
untrue. Julie has often been with letters from Howard to Mademoiselle
Montijo, when she lived with her mother in the Place Vendome, un
miserable entresol sur la cour. The house is No. 4, I think she said, in
the south-east comer of the square. She and her mother kept two women
^ The Honble. Henry Howard, Secretary at Paris.
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servants, a cook and a bonne. Julie cited as a sign of the mishre in which
they lived, that these women wore handkerchiefs on their heads instead of
caps. Aguado, elder brother of the Comte and Vicomte, kept a one-horse
remise for her, and provided for them in other ways. Julie declares that
Eugenie had other worshippers, too, ' meme des AUemands' Aguado was
married to an Englishwoman, who is now remarried to his brother, the
Vicomte. He went mad when Mademoiselle Montijo married the Emperor,
and afterwards died. She lived on in the Place Vendome till the week
before her marriage, when she was taken to the Tuileries to be married
from there at Notre Dame. Such is Julie's a^ccount Julie and M. Perrier,
Howard's valent, used to talk these over together, ' Ce pauvre M. Perrier
qui est mart/ History is written from such intimate talk.
" My own recollections of the Emperor are not very many. I saw him
for the first time in 1851, on the day of his coup d'itat, when he became
President for life. We, my brother Francis and I, with our mother, were
passing through Paris on our way to Italy, and we were staying at the
Hotel Wagram, only two doors from my present apartment here in the
Rue de Rivoli. Francis and I went out with our tutor, Edmund Coffin, to
see what was going on in the streets. The Rue de Rivoli was full of
people, and there was a cordon of gendarmes between it and the Place de la
Concorde. ' Liberti, Egalite, et Fratemiti' was still written up every-
where on the walls. The President rode by close to us with his Staff, and
passed up the Rue Royale. This was a very early recollection, before he
was Emperor. When I next saw him it was at Biarritz in 1863. He used
to walk about there leaning on the arm of his Chamberlain, Tascher de la
Pagerie, moving slowly like an old man. I went one evening to a ball at
the Pavilion, and was presented to him and the Empress. The Empress
reminded me that she had seen me at Madrid some months before, which
was true, for I had been to an audience of the Corps Diplomatique when
she was paying her visit to Queen Isabella. At the ball the Emperor
walked about looking bored, not at all as if he was in his own house. He
is a thick-set, coarsely made man (with legs too short for his body), and
in his uniform might be taken for a sergeant. He has nothing remarkable
in his face, except his cold green eyes, which have a strangely fascinating,
but repellent power. They give him a certain distinction. I have since,
while at the Embassy, been to balls at the Tuileries, but have never had
personal speech with him. I have listened to him, however, talking once
for twenty minues at a time with Lord Cowley, at one of the receptions
while the Empress was finishing her cercle. They were discussing on that
occasion a review there had been of the English and French fleets, and his
remarks were the essence of commonplace. He has none of the ease of
manner, the lightness of thought, the esprit Gaulois which go so far in
France, a heavy, slow-thinking man, talking French with a provincial
accent. It is strange that such a man should have ruled the French for
twenty years. If he had died a month ago he would have left a great
name in history. Now who knows? He may be ranked on a level with
Louis Philippe. Such are the chances of a man's glory.
" 10th Aug. — I have drawn £40 in five-franc pieces for the siege. It is
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already diflBcult to change bank notes. The town is quieter to-day. No
news from the army. A list of the new Ministry is published, Palikao, La
Tour d'Auvergne, Magne, Rigault, Girardin — more Bonapartist than
ever. The Chamber supports them for the present. Paris is full of troops,
500 Marines marched past our house this morning on their way to the war,
all stout, smart fellows. I take it no troops have ever fought better than
the French have done.
" I have been reading Prevost Paradol's last book, ' La France Nouvelle,'
published last year. The concluding chapter reads prophetically now. He
gives the future of the world to the English race, true enough if it includes
our off-shoots, American and Colonial, but he hardly foresees what must
happen, the extinction of England herself. England's political life will be
over the day that Holland is annexed to Germany. There is also little
sign of the continuance of the intellectual eminence of our race. Litera-
ture never long survives a nation's decline, and in the English speaking
off-shoots no sign of intellectual life has yet been given, though America
has had a hundred years of independence. The English language, how-
ever, is never likely to become a dead one. Her literature will still live,
even if it ceases to be productive ; in France it is otherwise. French will
be a dead language, as dead at least as Spanish is. As for German, which
is to become the language of Europe, it shows no sign of producing a
readable literature. The only German I can read is Goethe's, who took
the best of his inspiration from Rousseau. Where he is purely German,
he is pedantic and wearisome. Germany possesses some good lyric poetry,
but romance, tragedy, history, all are dull. ,What is really meritorious is
the scientific writing, but that is owing to the matter rather than the
manner. The Volkslieder have the melancholy charm of barbarous poetry,
but the serious poets are without humour. German is bourgeois and its
literature bourgeois. [This is a poor diagnosis. I ought to have at least
excepted Heine, but I left him out, I suppose, as being a Jew living at
Paris, and more of a Frenchman than of a German.]
** I4fh Aug, — Deauville. I came here on the night of the nth, as
there was no special news at Paris. The day I left, old Barre (the doyen
of the Paris Tennis Court) came to breakfast with me and after it we
played tennis, Brinquant making us a chouette. Barre was playing in
better form that I can remember him. Brinquant has just been called out
to join the army, being between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.
He will have to go as a ' simple pioupiou/ Substitutes are still to be had
at 8,000 francs, but it is considered dishonourable not to march in person.
In the middle of our game a company of grenadiers marched in through
the door by the net, and took formal possession of the Court, turning us
out. The officer in command saluting us politely from the net with his
drawn sword, saying, ' Messieurs, vous etes pri6s d'evacuer le jeu.' [This
proved to be absolutely the last game old Barre, the champion paumier of
his day, ever played, for he died of the hardships of the siege, though not
till 1872. He was a wonderful player, especially on the floor of the Court,
so that though I was then young and active, he could still give me the
walls. In private life he was excellent company, and some of us used to
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My Paris Diary of 1870 397
invite him to restaurant ^dinners, where his stories were of the best of an
extreme grivois kind, for he liad led the gayest of gay lives.] In the train,
as I came down here from Paris, I got into conversation with two deputies
from Mantes. One narrated his having asked Grammont how it was that
the army had been caught unprepared? Grammont had answered that
before making his declaration to the Chamber he had inquired of Le Bomf,
' Are you ready ? ' and Le Boeuf had replied, ' I can put 600,000 men on the
Rhine in a fortnight' Everybody is angry with Le Boeuf.
'' A letter is published from the Prince de Joinville offering his services
to the Emperor. Changamier has been made Commandant de place at
Metz. He is seventy-two years old. On Friday the 12th, Anne, Alice
Noel, and I drove to Glanville, from which village the Glanvilles of
Catchfrench claim originally to have come. There is a chateau there,
which we visited, of the time of Louis XIII, undergoing restoration by its
propretor, M. de Glanville, a man of sixty, whom we found at work weed-
ing in his grounds. I noticed that the coat of arms over the door was not
our English Glanville coat, and he told me that he had not the pretension
of descending from the original family. It must have been a picturesque
old place before the restoration, the avenues and the park round it good,
the ehns just like the Cornish ekns at Catchfrench, the country about it
beautiful and very English. We then drove on to Pont TEv^ue, a
charming, sleepy old town full of cats, and dined at the Bras d'or, a drum
was beating there, and a crier calling out all men from twenty-five to
thirty-five for the war. Later we saw the mayor posting up a notice
announcing the capture of Nancy by a detachment of the enemy's cavalry.
**i6th, Aug, — Paris. I came up yesterday morning by train from
Deauville, and on my way to the station read a telegram announcing that
the French army had crossed to the left bank of the Moselle, and meeting
the Prussians in force had repulsed them. The telegram is dated Longue-
ville and signed Napoleon. The Emperor seems to have left Metz on the
14th at two o'clock intending to go to Chalons. Nancy, which is in thci
hands of the Prussians, is a town of 30,000 inhabitants. It is quite open,
and was occupied by them without resistance. The advance posts of the
enemy have been pushed on to Toul and S. Mihiel.
"Yesterday was the festival of S. Napoleon, probably the last which
will be ever celebrated in France. Paris was silent as the grave, and when
I first arrived I thought a disaster must have happened. Bands of men
were at work on the fortifications. There is much to do before Paris can
resist a siege, houses to be razed and trees cut down. There were no
illuminations and scarcely a flag. I remember the fete of the 15th of
August in 1864 when I had just joined the Embassy as attach^ The
Emperor was then still popular, believed to be the longest head in Europe.
The Place de la Concorde, the Quays and the Invalides were one great
crowd, theatres open to the public gratis, shows and entertainments at
every comer. A balloon was being sent up from the Champ de Mars.
Carriages were forbidden to circulate in the too crowded streets, all but
those of the foreign Ambassadors. I had only that morning arrived, and
Lady Cowley took me with her and her daughter. Lady Feodore, and
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Sudley in her own barouche, and we drove up the Champs Elysees at a
foot's pace, a conspicuous figure in the good-natured Parisian crowd for
the illuminations. Now quel d^gringalage I
" The night before last there was an imeute in the ViUette, a band of
men crying 'Vive la Republique/ attacked some unfortunate pompiers in
their guard house, killed two or three, and then fired into the mob who
were coming to the rescue. They were some fifty or sixty armed with
daggers and revolvers, but after a show of fight they ran away, some being
caught and almost torn to pieces. The incident has been put down to ' the
gold of Bismarck/ just as in former days there was talk of 'the gold of
Pitt.' Paris is still full of Germans; there will be a general massacre of
these if it comes to a siege, perhaps of us English too. At this end of
the town everything is quiet. Count d'Aquila who arrived at Deauville
with eighteen of his favourite horses the day before I left, has made over
his house in the Avenue de Tlmperatrice for an ambulance, so I hear has
Evans the American dentist.
"5 p.m. — A letter has been posted officially from the sous-prefet of
Verdun, stating that cannonading was heard the whole of yesterday, and
that it was reported the Prussians had lost 40,000 men the day before near
Metz. On the other hand the 'Independence Beige' gives a despatch
from Berlin from King William to the Queen of Prussia announcing a
glorious victory. Edmond About writes in the * Soir ' describing the entry
of the Prussians into Saveme and MacMahon's retreat. The French, he
says, were ridiculously commanded. The Prussians are levying contribu-
tions in France just as they did in Frankfort and Homburg in the war
of 1866.
" 17th Aug. — This is my birthday of thirty, it finds me healthy, wealthy,
and wise, three things I never thought to be. Anne has made me a
birthday present of a silver coffee pot, I have long coveted, a Louis XVI
one of very beautiful French design. I have nothing left to wish for as a
birthday gift, except the destruction of the German army.
" I went last night to the Gymnase theatre, where they gave ' Diane de
Lys,' the moral of which is, ' II a voulu garder sa femme et il Ta gardee.'
The French pieces now generally give the beau role to the husband on
the stage as is also the case sometimes in real life, such as in that of
Beaumont who wounded his wife's three lovers one after the other. One
of the three duels was with Metternich. Metternich has, as all the world
knows, been Mme. de Persigny's lover, and then made court to Mme. de
Beaumont. She taxed him one day with his former devotion, and to prove
to her that it was at an end he made over to her Mme. de Persigny's letters
to him. These were found by Beaumont in his wife's drawer along with
letters to her from Metternich. The Ambassador, who is no Palladin,
refused to fight Beaumont threatened to expose his treachery to Mme.
de Persigny. The matter was laid before the Emperor, and Metternich,
it being decided he must fight, was run through the body, but soon recov-
ered. Beaumont also wounded du Hallay and another, whose letters also
had been found. Now nobody dares approach Mme. de Beaumont.
Metternich is what is called a gros fat, who likes to be called Monseigneor.
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I have played tennis with him, but he is a poor performer. Du Hallay is
a fat, funny young man, fond of a joke, but one would think innocuous
in a virtuous household.
"De Vogue, MacMahon's aide-de-camp, was killed at Worth, a good-
looking, very charming man of about thirty-five, bald, but the ideal of the
beau miUtaire. I used to know him in 1865, meeting him often at Madame
Arcos' (the Empress Eugenie's lady in waiting). He was at that time
Princess Poniatowska's lover — she a very pretty woman, tall, blonde, and
amusing.
" The Orleans Princes have been refused service in the army.
"18^^ Aug. — Yesterday at half-past five Blount, the Banker, came to
the Embassy, and announced that a great victory had been won the day
before, the i6th. He stated that he had seen press copies of the despatches,
and that the details were most complete. Schneider, President of the
Chamber, fully believed the news, and Ministers were only waiting to
announce it till written accounts should come. All the result was a tele-
gram published ' hier 16. II y a eu une afiPaire tr^ s6rieuse du cote de
Gravelotte. Nous avons eu Tavantage dans le combat, mais nos pertes sont
grandes. Comte de Palikao.' And this morning the 'Figaro' gives an
account of the battle of Borny fought under the walls of Metz, otherwise
called of Longueville. Gallifet is reported to have charged the enemy.
Gallifet is a brave man, and I always liked him in spite of his swagger.
It used to be a fine thing to see him play tennis with Smijthe of our
Embassy, who is a cool-headed man with one shoulder higher than the
other, an accident which gave him an extraordinarily heavy cut stroke on
the floor, most exasperating to Gallifet, who is a wild hitter. Gallifet plays
well, but was overmatched by Smijthe, who was the best player in the
tennis court three years ago. Gallifet used to call out, 'Ah dites done,
M. Smijthe, vous m'exasperez avec votre damnee patience; tappez done,
M. Smijthe.'
"I have been talking with Julie. She tells me her father was maire
of a village in Brittany and her uncle a bishop murdered at the altar
during the revolution. She had a brother older than herself killed in the
campaign of Russia under Bonaparte, and her father died of grief. He
left her a dot of 40,000 francs, but her worthless husband ate it all. She
tells me that we have a mouchard here on the fifth floor, whose wife is a
chatterbox. She has let out to Julie that the Empress has just sent the
husband to England with her jewels.
" igth Aug. — General Trochu is named Commandant of Paris. I went
yesterday to look at the fortifications. The guns on the walls are ridicu-
lous old pieces such as my Uncle Toby might have mounted on his horn
work. I was sent about my business by the sergent-de-ville. * Carriages
still pass into the Bois de Boulogne over a narrow plank bridge. The
Germans describe the battles of Borny and Gravelotte as victories, and say
the French army has been driven back into Metz.
"21st Aug, — Caen. I went down on the 19th to Deauville by train,
where I found Anne much better, and the next day, yesterday, we drove
here, stopping at Dives for half an hour to see the church. This is inter-
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400 Appendix I
esting on account of the list of names kept there of those knights who
followed William of Normandy to England in 1066. I counted some
seventy names of families still existing in England, among them the Byrons,
de Buron. Here at Caen we are at the Hotel d'Angleterre. The town is
full of conscripts, some in blouses, some in coats, all in red trousers, young
and happy. I have heard more singing in the streets here these two nights
than during all the last fortnight at Paris.
" With difficulty I procured a copy of the Paris ' Journal' Things seem
drifting towards a quarrel with England. The * Times/ which has taken a
violent side for Prussia in the war is now exasperating the French with
its good advice. Now, it says, is the moment for the neutral powers to
insist on peace. I expect to see proposals made for an armistice, to be
followed by peace on the principle of the status quo ante helium, France
to retain Alsace and Lorraine, but with the condition of immediate dis-
armament. If such be accepted tout serait sauvi fort I'honneur. I con-
sider the position so critical that, instead of going to Brittany as we
intended, we start to-morrow for the north. France, if she quarrels with
England, will be virtually outlawed and fighting for her life, and we
cannot expect any but the laws of necessity to rule her. Already the days
are being recalled to mind when France threw defiance in the face of all
Europe in the shape of 10,000 heads upon her scaffolds. She will scarcely
stop to distinguish between friend and foe, but I trust my precautions may
not be needed. The French army may yet be victorious, and the ' Times '
is not England, but who can say ? In the case of a rupture my sympathies
must be with France, but I am bound in form at least to my own country.
" 22nd Aug. — Pont TEveque. We left Caen at ten, and driving on got
here at five, having stopped three hours for breakfast at Dorule, our inn
there the White Horse, rustic, but good. Another capital country inn here,
the Bras d'or.
"The news to-night is bad, none for two days from Bazaine, who is
shut up in Metz. A letter has come from Lytton in Vienna, who expects
nothing but disaster for the French army. I still believe the Prussians
will be driven out 0/ France. Prussia is blockaded and nearly bankrupt.
" 2$th Aug. — On the night of the 23rd we slept at La Bouille, a village
on the Seine to which Rouen merchants go out to dine on summer even-
ings, and yesterday to Rouen, Hotel de France. We shall have to wait here
two days until our carriage wheels have been new tyred.
"The news to-day is better. Communication with Bazaine restored.
Bazaine declares that if he is still in Metz it is that he chooses to stay
there. The news from Prussian head-quarters absolutely contradicts this.
In England they choose to believe the Prussian account. I do not
Neither Bazaine nor Palikao would dare in the present state of France
to publish news directly false. The position of Englishmen in France is
becoming precarious, indeed of any person without visible occupation.
Prince Lubomirsky was arrested two days ago as a spy, and many quite
innocent people have been mal-treated by the mob. I shall go back to
Paris for a night to see how things are going on, and then drive to Dieppe
and send Anne and Miss Noel to England.
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" Strassburg is being besieged There was a report yesterday that Phals-
bourg had been taken. The King of Prussia has appointed Governors of
Alsace and Lorraine as Prussian provinces.
" ^7th Aug. — Rouen. I have been again to Paris. Going up in the
train I heard another spy story. The man who told it seemed to be a
Rouen merchant and the victim a friend from the country, a Normand, a
bel homme of fifty years. He had asked some questions about the mobiles
in front of the barracks, had been arrested by a sergent-de-ville, and got
his clothes torn by the mob. In Paris a decree has been issued expelling
' les touches inutHes/ A letter in the 'Figaro' asks whether the ladies
of pleasure may be properly so styled. The Government has answered
the question seriously by sending 2,000 of these women to the Conciergerie,
ready to be packed off at a moment's notice.
" At the Embassy I found them in little anxiety. Brinquant is not yet
ordered off. Webster, the old Queen's messenger and Philip Currie's boon
companion, is dead. Lord Hertford has also chosen the moment to die at
Bagatelle, his house in the Bois de Boulogne. He also was a type, the
original of Thackeray's Lord Steyne. He remained to the day of his
death a patron of the half world, and has left illegitimate children and no
will they say. He was fond of jokes, d la Regence, The most amusing
of them was connected with a young clergyman he had engaged as chap-
lain [but I forbear transcribing it]. His Lordship has long been Ugen-
daire in Paris, yet such is the disturbance in the public mind, his death is
mentioned without special comment in the papers.
"The Prussians are at Chalons, and in a few days, unless great events
happen, must be in front of Paris. The city will be summoned to sur-
render and threatened with destruction on refusal. The army is far away
and the garrison insufficient for defence. The Prussians will hardly
postpone a bombardment, and it is possible Paris may be taken by storm
and burnt. The Crown Prince, who is believed to be marching in advance,
probably counts on an insurrection as soon as he shall make his appear-
ance at the gates, or he would hardly risk so desperate an adventure with
two French armies in his rear. The Chamber is in an uproar, Gambetta
calling for news of the army, but the town is quiet and cheerful and the
Parisians seem ready to do their duty. Trochu has command of the place.
Edmond About, in the ' Soir,' croaks ominously. He has been in the jaws
of the lion and dreads its teeth. The ' Gaulois ' says that the Emperor is
in such a state that a surprising announcement might be any day made.
How strange it is to remember the early days of the war a month ago when
the Empress told her son ' Va done mon enfant et sois digne du sang des
Bonapartes et des Guzmans,' and when the train was out of sight, 'Sa
Majeste redevint femme.' At the first engagement at Saarbruck we were
told : ' Le Prince Imperiale ne se laissa nullement impressioner ; les vieux
soldats le voyant si calm fondirent en larmes . . . Quand commenca la
canonade le Prince demanda a FEmpereur " Dites done papa c'est une balle
qui siffle aupres de nous, ou bien un boulet." " On ne pent jamais savior
au juste mon fils," repondit I'Empereur. ... Apr^s la defaite de Tennemi
le Prince Imperiale presenta au jeune Conneau [his favourite playfellow]
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une balle qu'il avait ramassde sur le champ de bataille/ This is what
the ' Gaulois ' used to tell us.
"' I left Paris last night, looking sorrowfully on the Tuileries and its
garden, with the trees brown in it like autumn. The sergent-de-ville and
the sentinel stood as usual at the garden gate, the fountain played, the sun
shone, and the children and bonnes chattered as though the world were not
already crumbling about their ears. Julie is left with orders to bring away
the plate and pictures in case of the worst, and I shall take Anne over to
England and then come back if the siege is not begun, but one cannot
foresee. I dream every night of armies and victories and defeats."
This was my last visit to Paris before the city was invested by the
German armies and the siege began.
There is not much in my diary worth quoting after this. Having had
our carriage wheels new tyred we drove on to Dieppe, arriving there 29th
August, in heavy rain, to find the whole place full of refugees. " There
are a thousand men drilling here on the beach in blouses with a red cross
on their left sleeves. I am struck with the number of able-bodied men
one sees everywhere idle, although the whole country has been called to
arms. Perhaps there is a want of weapons. Dieppe is full of English
who affect sympathy with Prussia. General Trochu has at the eleventh
hour ordered all the Germans out of Paris within three days, one would
have expected within three hours. The bombardment of Strassburg has
done great damage. Kehl has been burnt. A shell burst in a Pensionnat
at Strassburg where the young ladies were at their history lesson. Seven
were killed. Phalsbourg holds out bravely.
"30fA Aug. — Julie has just arrived from Paris; very amusing about her
troubles in getting away. The Hotel Meyerbeer, where I used in former
days to lodge, has been sacked. Some Frenchmen came to dine there, and
the landlord (a German), seeing them out at elbows, thought fit to remark,
' You are too poor to dine here. I have just got an order from the King
of Prussia for a dinner of ninety covers for this day week.' The men,
upon ihis, fell on him and wrecked his house. There are said to be 40,000
Germans in Paris. Our Proprietaire, M. Desfontaines, has come into No.
204 from Noissy, through fear of the invasion.
" 31 J* Aug. — The Embassies are to remain at Paris, the Empress Regent
having declared her intention of remaining. Princess Mathilde has sent
away her valuables, as have probably most others who are rich. The
heroism of non-combatants in Paris will be shown mainly in their purses.
I go to England to-morrow to see Francis [my elder brother], who starts
shortly on his way back to Madeira.
"2nrf Sept,-^ At Worth Forest Cottage. The ' Daily News ' announces
in large capitals, ' Decisive Battle, MacMahon totally routed,' and prints
a telegram from William to Augusta : ' May God, who has hitherto be-
friended us, continue his protection to our arms.' I felt very sick and
angry, the more so because I have found everybody here at home crowing
over this final result of the war. Awake half the night, thinking bitter
things There was a great battle before Sedan yesterday.
*'3rrf Sept, — Spent the morning fishing at Cinderbanks. On coming
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My Paris Diary of 1870 403
in I heard the news of the surrender of the remains of the French army by
General Wimpfen, MacMahon's second in command, and of the Emperor.
Great nmnbers of French and many German soldiers, driven on to Belgian
soiU have laid down their arms. Count Flahault, one of the last men of
the First Empire, died yesterday. Many years ago he eloped to Gretna
Green with the heiress of the Keith Barony, and always after Madame de
Flahault came to England for her couches, so that her children should be
British subjects, and her son have a right to his seat in the House of
Lords.
" Sth Sept — To London for the day, and saw Philip Currie at the
Foreign Office, who gave me an alarming account of the disturbed state of
France. He showed me a letter just come from a girl who was governess
at a French chateau in the south. She wrote that the peasantry were
surrounding the house.
" 6th Sept.--- Back to Dieppe.
"Bth Sept. — Crossed back again with Anne to Newhaven in a gale of
wind. We were thirteen hours at sea, and ran some risk of being driven
on to Beachy Head. At Newhaven we found our Swiss horses, and drove
on to Worth Forest. Before leaving Dieppe I sent Julie a box containing
100 lb. of ship's biscuits, with a letter of instructions as to her conduct
during the siege. I also offered my apartment to the maire as an ambu-
lance, but my proprietor refused his consent. [The biscuits fortunately
reached Julie just before communication with Paris ceased, and proved a
Godsend to her during the four months the siege lasted. My cousin,
Francis Currie, whom, though I have said nothing about him in my diary,
I had seen constantly during my last weeks at Paris, making our specula-
tions on the course of events together, remained on quietly in his rooms
in the Palais Royal right through both siege and Commune, continuing
his philosophic occupation, the pursuit of pleasure, without disturbance
or much hardship. I should have stayed on with him, but for my wife's
expected confinement, and seen the drama out. It was an opportunity
missed I still regret.]
" 2$th Sept. — Since my return to England I have not read a newspaper,
nor shall till peace is made/'
A few extracts from letters, written me just then by my friend Robert
Lytton, dealing with public events, may here be added. He was at the
time first Secretary of Embassy at Vienna, but on leave in England, and
in close touch with all our chief diplomatists.
"nth Sept., 1870. — Knebworth. I am very doubtful as to the Germans
claiming Alsace and Lorraine, but if they do claim it, it will be baseless,
abominable, unprecedented, and irredeemable should England stand by
quiescent while her boasted ally of yesterday is being dismembered. Yet
a colleague whom I met yesterday, fresh from the Foreign Office, told me
the Government is firmly resolved to do nothing, and does not seem to
think the situation worth a Cabinet Council. We shall pay dearly and
perhaps more than we can afford by and by for the excessive prudence of
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404 Appendix I
our present policy, which is, I am told, strongly recommended by Lyons,
who is afraid of burning his fingers and losing his reputation as a safe
man. France will, of course, be thrown into the arms of Russia, and
sell her support in the East for a European alliance of Vengeance on her
faithless friend across the Channel/'
I remember that my own feeling at the time about Alsace Lorraine was
one of rejoicing that the Germans, whom I hated, should have let slip an
opportunity of high-minded moderation which would have redoubled the
glory of their victories. While at Worth Forest with my brother Francis,
we used to argue the French and the German case, he strongly main-
taining against me that the French defeat had delivered Europe from its
chief danger. Germany, he thought, could never be a serious menace.
"3rd, Oct., 1870. — Ormeskirk. Odo Russell [our Ambassador at
Berlin] who sees all the despatches now as soon as they arrive, and is
therefore a good authority, writes to his wife, who is here, that Bismarck
has intimated to us his intention of eventually, after taking Paris I
suppose, sending the Emperor back to France with a slice of Belgium by
way of a letter of recommendation to the French people. You may fancy
how this has fluttered our Downing Street dovecote. I can myself hardly
believe the story, but if Bismarck really does play off this practical joke on
us what a redttctio ad absurdum it will be of the lauded prudence of the
Gladstone Cabinet in regard to that absurd Belgian treaty. Odo adds that
Bismarck wishes to keep Bazaine locked up in Metz with the whole
garrison till the end of the war, but not to attack them or destroy them,
because it is his wish to hand over to the Emperor at the end as large a
remnant as can yet be saved of the Imperial army. Meanwhile Russia
is certainly arming fast, and the Russian merchants in the city have
already created a panic there by their expressed apprehension, which
seems to me perfectly well founded that she is about to attack Turkey. I
take it that whenever she pleases Russia can do this with perfect impu-
nity and success."
"yth Oct., 1870. — Knebworth. In connection with the story I men-
tioned in my last, Odo says that Bismarck avers that, although it is neces-
sary to keep Bazaine safe in Metz, he is anxious, if possible, not to starve
or otherwise destroy the army shut up in that town, in order that at the
end of the war he may hand over to the Emperor as much as can be
spared of the Imperial forces for the preservation of order in France.
However, I still disbelieve the story. In a letter which Lady Emily
received from her husband the day I left Lathom, he said: 'The French
Government has again for the third, and it says for the last time made a
most earnest and pathetic appeal to us as the old friends and allies of
France to come to the rescue, to which we have replied by a long despatch
to the effect that we pity France, but can't help her. This document is a
very painful one to read, and it is one which I am certain your dear father
[Lord Clarendon] would never have written.'
" Lady Cowley, who did not go to see the Emperor at the request of the
Empress but on her own hook from Frankfort, said he was looking in
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My Paris Diary of 1870 405
much better health than she expected to tind mm, tnat fie seemed deeply
mortified by the abuse of the French Press, but maintained that he was
still the favourite of the French people, and seemed to count on returning
to the Tuileries. The Empress wrote him a most insulting and heartless
letter calling him a ' Idche/ the receipt of which was the occasion of that
fainting fit which gave rise to the rumour of his attempted suicide. He
told Lady Cowley that he was literally without a sixpence. Granunont,
who has been staying with Lord Malmesbury, declares this to be perfectly
true, and that the utmost the Emperor's few remaining friends hope to be
able to make up for him is £1,200 a year. The Empress, I believe, has
some fortune of her own, but they are on the worst possible terms. I hope
I shall soon be able to invite myself to Worth as Lady Cowley invited her-
self to Wilhelmshohe.
" Did you see that the French papers, learning from the English Press
that the Prussians were supplied with the best information from their gen-
eral stafiF, exclaimed in chorus : ' Nous savons maintenant qui est cet espion
qui a foumi aux Prussiens tant de precieux renseignements ; c'est M. le
General Staff, honmie d'une astuce remarquable.' "
END OF MY PARIS DIARY OF 187O
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APPENDIX II
Memorandum as to the Evacuation of Egypt
The evacuation of Egypt is ,a question partly of honour, partly of pru-
dence. Of honour, in view of the pledges given; of prudence on military
grounds.
If Egypt could be held honourably and without risk of war, there is
much to be said in favour of continuing the English protectorate. It se-
cures our Mediterranean route to India at a small cost. Its prestige to us
is of value, and we should be spared the discredit of a withdrawal under
French pressure. We owe it, too, to the Egyptians, whose army and polit-
ical aspirations we destroyed in 1882, to continue to them our assistance
in their weakness as against other Powers.
Nevertheless the risks appear to me great. Egypt's position on the
Suez Isthmus is too important geographically to be allowed permanently
to any one European Power by the rest of the Powers. It stands marked
out for neutrality as between them, and France will certainly not consent
to our holding it permanently without a war. As a question of near dan-
ger I have reason to feel sure that a complete agreement has been come to
between France and the Sultan (probably, too, the Czar) regarding it,
and that the return of the Liberal Party to office in England will determine
their joint action.
It is therefore of some urgency to consider whether we are strong
enough by land and sea to refuse at all hazards.
I agree entirely with Mr. Gladstone when he hopes that Lord Salisbury
rather than himself may negotiate the evacuation. Mr. Gladstone's posi-
tion abroad will be weak, as he will be without cordial support from the
Central Powers, while his position in honour towards France will be ham-
pered by his many pledges. Lord Salisbury could get better terms for the
Egyptians, and would be less likely to sacrifice them to the exigencies of
European diplomacy.
I believe an evacuation might be effected on one or other of the fol-
lowing lines:
(i) The simplest and most expeditious plan would probably be to hand
over the military responsibility to the Sultan. This would have the advan-
tage of postponing the ultimate question. It would place Egypt, as regards
European ambitions, under whatever degree of integrity the Ottoman Em-
pire enjoys. Ottoman troops could certainly guard her southern frontier
and prevent surprise from other quarters. England, this quarrel about
Egypt settled, would then revert to her former friendly relations with Tur-
key, and in the event of a break-up of the Empire would be free to take
406
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Memorandum as to the Evacuation of Egypt 407
whatever steps her interests required As regards Egyptian opinion, I be-
lieve that on the whole it would be not unfavourable to such a solution.
There is no love for the Turks among the fellahin, but the Sultan's au-
thority would be accepted by them as natural and legal, while it must be
remembered that the Khedivial rule is also Turkish. The Sultan, indeed,
might be expected to protect in some measure the Arabic-speaking popula-
tion against a renewal of oppression by the Turkish Circassian Pashas,
and, in any case, he would be jealous in their favour of European aggres-
sion.
No administrative interference, however, need be conceded if the trans-
fer of military protection be made under agreement. It is probable that, if
the right claimed for England in the Wolff Convention of ultimate inter-
vention were withdrawn, France and Russia would not oppose such a
solution.
(2) A better plan, if honestly attempted by England, and as honestly
accepted by the Powers, would be to re-establish the National Government
on liberal and progressive lines, under guarantee of neutrality.
Although much time and opportunity have been wasted during our nine
years of occupation in repressing political life among the Egyptians, I am
still of opinion that something in the shape of Constitutional Government
would give them their best chance of permanent independence and progress
as a race. It must not be forgotten that in 1882 a Constitution on' a Euro-
pean model (decree of March, 1882) was obtained by the Egyptian Na-
tional Party, which gave considerable promise of efficiency as a means of
asserting native right against both the Turkish ruling caste and the Euro-
pean colonists. If it had not been put down by England's armed interven-
tion, it would in all likelihood have given a new impulse of progress not
only to Egypt, but to the surrounding Mohammedan lands. I am of opin-
ion that even yet its restoration at Cairo would have this eflFect, and is not
impossible. The National Constitutional Party, though broken as an or-
ganization, exists in the individuals who composed it, and in younger men
of a new generation holding similar ideas. From among these a Ministry
could be formed to set the Constitutional machine in motion under sympa-
thetic English auspices, nor do I doubt that within a couple of years it
would be found competent to conduct the business of the country without
further military aid. It is by men of this party alone that Sir Evelyn
Baring's better work in Egypt is appreciated, and it is only to their hands
that the work of continuing it could be reasonably entrusted.
Unfortunately for such a solution, the Constitutional idea finds many
adverse influences under present conditions. The Khedive and the Turk-
ish Party, which we have replaced in office, are wholly opposed to it. The
European officials representing financial interests consider any form of
popular government less manageable by them than the present absolute
regime. And Sir Evelyn Baring would as little approve. Lastly — and
this is perhaps the greatest obstacle — the French and foreign policy
generally in the East desires nothing so little as to see a genuine resuscita-
tion of political vitality among the native races. Under the present des-
potic yet feeble rSgime, France counts on succeeding England in controlling
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4o8 Appendix II
a weak prince and weaker people until such time as Egypt may fall to her
share of the Ottoman spoils.
The attempt, therefore, if made at all, must be made honestly and with
the thoroughgoing support of a sympathetic English representative, other-
wise it cannot but fail.
(3) The third solution of placing Egypt under joint European guardian-
ship and political control, is one against which, however it may recommend
itself as a settlement of European differences, I feel bound to protest in
native Egyptian interests.
Under English rule the native populations have been carefully protected,
and their rights maintained against the encroachment of foreign colonists.
But under any other European rule than England's the reverse would cer-
tainly be the case. Egypt under French or Italian or joint European con-
trol would be exploited in whatever direction it was thought that revenue
could be best increased. The fellahin now enjoying their hereditary lands
would be speedily dispossessed and reduced to a practical slavery worse
than any they have hitherto known, and as a race would probably be little
by little displaced, the demoralized, and extirpated.
As already remarked, the fellahin in 1882, alarmed at this very danger
under the Anglo-French control, had asserted themselves politically and
forced their rulers to grant them a means of self-defence in the form of a
Constitutional Government. They had acquired the support of a large
army with sufficient prestige to deter attack from more than one of the
Powers, and they were backed by much S3rmpathy east and west in their
attempted reforms. Having for our own reasons suppressed all these pos-
sibilities of good for them, it would be a supreme injustice to overlook their
interests now in the settlement to be made. To Mr. Gladstone especially,
who is so largely responsible for the intervention, it should be a matter of
honourable concern that this race and people should not perish.
(4) To withdraw the British garrison under present conditions and
without a political settlement would be to court future difficulties.
Sir Evelyn Baring's policy of the last five years, based as it has been
on the view that Egypt was to remain a permanent annex of the Indian
Empire, has practically destroyed all authority there but that of the Eng-
lish Occupation. Eg3rpt's present government is a mixed European, Ar-
menian, and native bureaucracy controlled by half-a-dozen Englishmen
with the British garrison at their back. No native government in any
sense of authority exists. The Khedive, indolent and without initiative, is
a mere dummy Prince. His Ministers, most of them Turks of advanced
years, have been chosen for their pliancy rather than their ability. Their
names have no weight, and their duties are little more than to sign without
reading the documents placed before them. The great departments of Fi-
nance, Irrigation, War, and latterly Justice, are directed by Englishmen.
The army and police have English superior officers ; and even the Interior
is, I believe, in process of being taken over by us.
This Anglicized condition of the Government could not long survive a
withdrawal of the English troops. Even were it consented to by France,
it would rapidly lose its authority. English control, though not unpopular
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Memorandum as to the Evacuation of Egypt 409
with the fellahin, is disliked by every class in Cairo and the towns, and
would at once be the object of attack, open or secret.
It is a mistake to suppose the Khedive attached to English influence, or
to be depended on in any way to support it. On the contrary, while lean-
ing on English support these last ten years he has deeply resented the
usurpation of his authority, and the many indignities he has been made to
accept. It is more than probable that seeing French influence in the as-
cendant, he would secretly favour the intrigues which would be begun
against the English commands in the Army and the English Civil officials.
A couple of years would thus see the downfall of the whole structure of
English influence so elaborately reared. In the absence of any native po-
litical organization in the country its government would then become prac-
tically French ; and this is doubtless what the French Foreign Office counts
upon. I deprecate such a result both for English interests, and especially
for the Egyptians for the reasons already given.
Such, I take it, are the various lines on which evacuation could be ef-
fected. If the Liberal Party is prepared with a definite plan by which
Egypt could be provided with a satisfactory Government preparatory to
withdrawing our troops under settlement with the Sultan and Powers, I
think its leaders do well to press evacuation on public attention. But it is
idle for them to entertain the idea that any such Government has been al-
ready formed, or even that a first step in that direction has been already
taken. Sir Evelyn Baring's policy is entirely one of remaining in Egypt,
and each year sees more and more authority placed in English hands. Oth-
erwise I see no alternative but to re-establish the Sultan's military author-
ity, or to brave the danger of European complications, as Lord Salisbury
will doubtless do, and remain. An English protectorate would be a lesser
evil to the Egyptians than any form of European Joint Control.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt.
Paris, Nov. 5, 1891.
N.B. This memorandum was written for Lytton while staying at the
Paris Embassy, but I am not sure whether he ever read it, for he was
lying on his death bed. Edwin Egerton, however, then first Secretary and
chargi d^aif aires of the Embassy, highly approved of it — so much so that
he gave a copy of it to Blowitz, who sent it to the *' Times," where it may
be found, though not quite in its full text
W. S. B.
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APPENDIX III
Mr. Herbert Spencer to Mr. Blunt
[Reed. October 4, 1898]
S, Percival Terrace,
Brighton.
Dear Snt,
For some years I have been casting about for a poet who might fitly
undertake a subject I very much want to see efficiently dealt with. At one
time I thought of proposing it to Mr. Robert Buchanan, who, in respect
of vigour of expression and strength of moral indignation seemed appro-
priate, but I concluded that the general feeling with regard to him would
prevent a favourable reception — would, in fact, tend very much to can-
cel the effect produced. Afterwards the name of Mr. William Watson
occurred to me as one who had shown feelings of the kind I wished to see
expressed. But admirable as much of his poetry is, the element of power
is not marked; he does not display a due amount of burning sarcasm.
Your recent letter in "The Times," and since then a review in "The
Academy," in which there were quotations from your poem, "The Wind
and the Whirlwind," lead me to hope that you may work out the idea
I refer to.
This idea is suggested by the first part of Goethe's " Faust "— " The Pro-
logue in Heaven," I think it is called. In this, if I remember rightly (it is
now some fifty years since I read it), Mephistopheles obtains permission to
tempt Faust: the drama being thereupon initiated. Instead of this I sug-
gest an interview and dialogue in which Satan seeks authority to find some
being more wicked than himself, with the understanding that if he succeeds
this being shall take his place. The test of wickedness is to be the d^^ree
of disloyalty — the degree of rebellion against divine government
Satan gives proof that his rebellion has been less flagitious than that of
men.
He confesses to having been a rebel, but an avowed one.
He has not, like men, professed to worship the Christian God while per-
petually worshipping the pagan gods ; he has not day by day sacrificed with
zeal to Thor and Odin, while nominally sacrificing to Jehova.
He is not like men who, tepidly joining in praises of Christ as a model
on one day in the week, on the other six days bring up their sons in
glowing admiration of blood-stained Homeric heroes.
He is not like men who, nominally admitting on Sunday that forgiveness
is a virtue, emphatically insist on and practice on all other days the duty of
blood-revenge.
410
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Herbert Spencet^s Letter 411
He has never done like men who, professing the Christian principle of
submitting to injuries, ridicule as idiots the few Christians who propose to
act on that principle.
He has not, while professing to relinquish the savage law of retaliation
— a life for a life — adopted the far more savage law — for one life many
lives.
Satan goes on to urge that he has never with rebellion joined perpetual
insults as men have done.
I have never turned your churches of mercy into pagan temples by hang-
ing up in them the torn flags of conquered peoples.
I have never blasphemed by thanking you for aiding in mowing down
tens of thousands of men who worshipped you under another name.
I have never blasphemed by calling you Omniscient while ascribing to
you unutterable stupidity — the stupidity of being ready to accept perpetual
professions of obedience as sufficient to cancel perpetual acts of absolute
disobedience : being so pleased with laudations, prayers, and obeisances as
to overlook the contemptuous disregard of peremptory commands.
The Reply
If while sacrificing to me in name men have sacrificed to Pagan gods in
act, it is your doing. You have betrayed them into this rebellion. Only by
your delusions has it been possible to make them think that I should accept
words in place of deeds. Joined though it is with lying and hypocrisy, the
rebellion of these beings is not worse than your rebellion, because you have
prompted it
Satan
But if I deceived them it was only because they wished to be deceived.
They wished to gratify their revenge while having the blessings promised
to those who forgive.
Reply
You cannot be pardoned.
Satan
But may I mete out their punishments according to their own measure?
They ask to be forgiven their sins as they forgive the sins of others.
May I torture them in proportion to their unf orgiveness ? For every time
they have professed the religion of love and practised the religion of hate,
may I thrust them a step lower down in hell?
Might not some ^such ideas as these, presented with power, produce con-
siderable effects upon a few men, though not perhaps on many?
I am faithfully yours,
Herbert Spencer.
end of appendices
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INDEX TO VOLUME I
Abbas II. Khedive of Egypt, 63, 64,
84-93, 97, 98, loi, 108^ no, 113, 116-
131, 134-138, 141, 142, 144, 165-168,
19s, 207, 208, 210-213, 218-223, 242-
244, 246, 247, 268, 271, 7:71. 285, 286,
363, 366, 368, 369, 374
Abdallah, the Khalifa of Omdurman,
13, 126, 196, 201, 219, 242, 287, 296,
30s, 341, 342
Abdu, Sheykh Mohammed, afterwards
Grand Mufti of Egypt, 31, 45, 48,
49, 64, 90, 91, 97, 122, 125, 135, 138,
166, 206, 209, 214, 219-221, 225, 243-
247, 2^7, 285, 288. 289, 338, 343, 344.
346. 347, 349, 374
Abdul Hamid, Ottoman Sultan, 96, 99,
100, 102, 105, 113, 119-121, 123, 127,
133, 142, 168, 190, 206-208, 215, 227,
239, 244, 246, 277, 278, 285, 305, 306,
309
Abdullah Pasha Nedj, Ibn Thenneyan
Ibn Saoud, 93, 105, 206, 209, 211
Abu Naddara, see Sanua
Abdul Huda, Sheykh, 206, 209, 285
Achmeteffa, 7, 8
Afghan Frontier, 283
Afridis, The, 285
Afrits, 36
Albania, 9
Alexandra, Queen, 382
AH Bey Kamel, 95
Ali Pasha Sherif, 166, 167, 210, 245
Alsace-Lorraine, 4, 21, 305, 401, 403, 404
Amir Ali, 80
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 290, 291
Animals, rights of, 343, 346
Aosta, Duchess of, see Hidlene, Prin-
cess of Paris
Aosta, Duke of, 170, 171
Arabi Pasha, 4, 12, 16, 17, 30, 31, 32,
45, 54, 74, 75. 80, 93-95, 193, 198. 203,
209, 219, 223, 250, 363
Armenia, 103, 106, 173, 185-192, 214, 215,
219, 238, 239, 244
Asquith, H. H., M. P., 72, 117, 140, 141,
145, 146
Asquith, Margot, (Formerly Margot
Tennant), 63, 69, 72, 75, 76, 83, no,
ni, 140, 141, 145, 170, 230, 231, 314
Athens, 7, 8, 98
Austin, Alfred, Poet Laureate, 144, 212,
214, 279, 280, 369
Australia, 321
Automobiles, 371
Baggaras tribe, the, 196
Balfour, Rt. Honble. Arthur James, M.
P* 22, 53, 54, 72, 281, 290, 291, 322-
324
Balfour, Rt. Honble. Gerald, M. P., 60,
70, 172
Bannerman, Rt Honble. Campbell, M.
P., 322, 323
Baring financial crisis, 54
Baring, Sir Evelyn, see Cromer
Barre, celebrated French tennis cham-
pion, 396. 397
Beauclerk, Father, 300, 301
Bedouins, The, 221
Belgian treaty, 404
Benedetti, M., French Ambassador at
Berlin. 388, 389
Berbers, The, 200, 201, 219
Berlin, Congress of, 109
Bernhardt Sarah, 102, 103
Bismarck, Prince, 10, 18, 238, 295, 305,
381. 382, 388. 389^ 404
Bizerta, 155
Bloemfontein, 326
Blunt. General Walter, Pasha, A. D. C.
to the Sultan, loi, 187, 189
Boer War, 327, 328* 331-330, 340, 34i,
344, 346, 347, 350^ 351, 365, 368, 372,
375, 37^f s^^ fl^o Transvaal
Boulanger, General, 2. 3, 4, 20, 57
Bourke, Honble. Algernon, see "But-
ton"
Bourke, Honble. Terence, I53-IS9
Boutros Pasha, 312
Bowen, Sir George, 89, 90
Brand. Harry, see Hampden
Brandes, Georg, 232
Branicka, Countess, 181, 182, 183
Brewster, Bey, Khedive Abbas' private
secretary, 130, 131
"Bride of the NiUr "3
British Empire, 212, 214, 233, 285, 268,
290, 311, 333, 342, 344, 375, 376
Broadwood, Captain, afterwards Gen-
eral, 127, 128, 199, 200. 201
Browning, Letters of Mrs., 373
413
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414
Index
Buckle, George Earle, Editor of the
"Times." 226, 328
Budge. Dr., 332
Bulgaria, 179
Buller, O^neral Sir Redvers, 333, 334,
346, 350, 366
Bulwer's Island, 185
Bume- Jones, Sir Edward, 67, iii, 229,
240, 294. 31s
Burton, Sir Richard, 292
"Button," Honble. Algernon Bourke,
278, 296, 366
Cambon, M., French Ambassador in
London, 308, 309. 314
Canterbury Cathedral, 232
Carthage, Site of, 154
Castletown, Lord and Lady* 77, 78
Chamberlain, Rt. Honble. Joseph, M.
P., 211, 218, 222, 226, 278, 280, 281,
306, 322, 325, 327, 332, 350, 351, 372
Chess, i«;6
"Chibine" wreck of, 352-361
China. 369, 375
Churchill, Lord Randolph, M. P., 31,
50. 52, 97. 142
Churchill, Rt. Honble Winston, M. P.,
321, 322
Cistema, 28
Clarendon, Lord, 38S
Coal War. 116
Cockerell, Sidney, 293, 294, 3Sii 352,
358, 365
Cogordan, M., French Minister at
Cairo, 209, 215, 287, 364
Congo, The, 376
Constantinople, see also Abdul Hamid,
98, 184 187. 190
Convention, the Drummond Wolf, 12,
S8, 60. 102, 109. 173. i8s. 407
Coup d'etat (Egypt) 86, 87, 125
Crabbet CluU The, 41, 42. 68, 112, I4S»
Crete, 296
Crispi Signor, 217, 36s
Cromer, Lord, (now Ear! Cromer—
formerly Sir Evelyn Baring), 11, 17,
30, 31, 34, 3S» 43-50, 61-64, 72, 76, 82,
84-95, 97, 98, 107-110, 116^ 1 18-120,
124-126, 128-132, 135-138, 141, 165,
204-206, 211-213, 218-224, 227, 244-
247, 285, 288, 307, 310^ 312, 313, 324,
334, 344, 347, 350, 362, 363. 407-409
Currie, Francis Gore, 2, 43, 383, 403
Currie. Sir Philip, afterwards Lord
Ambassador at Constantinople, 112,
184-186, 188, 189, 191, 215, 231
Curzon, Honble. George, afterwards
Earl Curzon of Kedleston, 58, 112,
173, 308
Cust, Harry, M. P., 42, no, 171, 231,
308. 326
Dalmatia, Parties in, 18
Dawkins, Financial Adviser, 224
Delcasse, M., 306, 309
Delta of the Nile, 374
Dervishes, 200. 205, 210, 296
Desert Journeys, 168, 216, 248-275
DeVere, Aubrey, 337
Dilke, Rt. Honble. Sir Charles, M. P.,
108
Dillon, John, M. P., ni, 325, 348
Dongok, 193, 201, 205, 206, 220-224, 231,
233. 238, 243
Doughty, Charles, 273
Dreyfus Case, 289, 304, 327-329
Drinkshops, 49, 120, 121
Driving Tours, 70, 148, 234-237, 282,
283
Dufferin, Marquess of, 30, 51, 59, 80,
112. 177
Duran, C^arolus, 79
Edward VII, King, see Wales
Egerton, Secretary, 58, 59, 98
Egypt, brigandage in, 43 ; evacuation of,
49, S8. 60, 74, 88. 94. 108, 109, Ii5,
116, 117, 120, i8s. 214, 215, 218, 245,
350, 406; increase of ram in, 133;
the law in, 247; military occupation
of, 43, 44, 107; nationalism, 11, 84,
138, 165, 350; political situation in,
II. 12, 43; saved from absorption,
25. See also Abbas, Cromer, Tewfik,
Abdu Mohammed, Desert trips,
Sheykh Obeyd
El Bekri, Sheykh of Cairo, 87, 89, 90,
96. 123, 124, 285
Ellis, The Honble. Sir Arthur, Eq-
uerry to the Prince of Wales, 98, 141
Emin Pasha. 102
Empire, see British Empire
English language. 396
Esterhazy. M., 289
"Esther/' 81, 83
Estournelles, M. Constant d', 109, no,
308
Eugenie. Empress, 176, 392, 393, 394.
395, 401, 405
Eversley, Lord, 311
European War, 50
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415
Fashoda, ^7* 298^ ag^ joa, 303. 304,
30s, 306, 369
Faure, President, 313
Fayoum, The, 249
Fellahin, The, 45, 46, 48, 194, 408
Fenwick. Pasha, 87, 165
Ferdinand, Prince, 179
Ferrieres, M., 78
Filipinos, The, 33if 376
"Fire and Sword in the Soudan," 242
Foffliano, 28
Ford, Rt. Honble. Sir Clare, British
Ambassador at Constantinople, 99,
103. 113
France, the Entente with, 59, 309, see
Fashoda
Franco-Prussian War, 382, 387-404
Frankfort, 382
Freemantle. Sir Arthur, 163, 164
Froissart's Chronicles, 285
"Frontier incident. The," 118, 125-130,
134, 136
Gabez, a Patm Oasis, 161
Gallifet, Gen., 328, 3^, 399
Galloway, Countess of, no, 172, 215
Game laws, French, 77
Garah, 273
German Kings, rage for, 387
Germany, 404; intrigues of, 238
Gifford, 173
Ghaleb, Osman Bey, Egyptian Nation-
alist, 113, 119, 125-127
Gill. T. P., M. P., 218, 227
Gladstone, Rt. Honble. W. E., M. P.,
52, 57, 61, 65, 68, 73, 74, 89, 107, 108,
116. 117, II9» 122, 133, 239, 290, 294,
406, 408
Glen, The, 56, 57
Gordon, General C. G., of Khartoum,
32, 130, 2d2, 296
Gordon, Colonel Bill, nephew to Gen-
eral Gordon, 129, 130, 225, 2^ 313,
317. 320, 330
Gorst, Mr., afterwards Sir Eldon, 88,
165, 193, 209, 224, 276, 287
Gosse, Edmund, 145
Government, National, 407
Grammont, 393, 397
Greece, 7-10; War with Turkey, 276,
278, 284, 286
Greenwood, 279
Gregory^ Lady, 65, 125, 290, 291
Grey, Rt Honble. Sir Edward Bart.,
afterwards Lord Grey of Falloden,
81, 134, 313
Gros Bois, 26, 175, 302, 360, 370
HaKvy, LttdoTic, 175, 176
Halim, Prince, 16. 61, 106
Hamilton, Sir Edward, permanent of-
ficial of the Treasury, 53, 108, 109
Hampden, Harry Brand, Lord, 321, 326
329, 331. 333, 369, 370
Hanotaux, M., 303, 304
Harcourt. Sir William, M. P., 60, 61,
6S, 81, 83, 108, 109, 115, 140, 170, 307,
308, 310, 312, 323. 324
Hardinge, Rt Honble. Sir Arthur of
the Diplomatic Service, 88
Harrison, Frederic, 65, 6S, 117, 143, 233,
327,329
Hassan Abu Tawil, Sh^ykh, 363, 376
Hassan Sherei, 49
Hawarden, 73
HKlenc, Princess of France, Duchess
of Aosta, 56, III, 120, 133, 170, 36s
Henley, W. E., poet, 108, 109, 232, 278,
200
Herbert The Honble. Auberon, 235,
236, 2B2
Holywell, St Winifrid's Well in Flixft-
shire, 292, 293, 300, 301
Home Rule, Irish, 41, 51, 65, 66, 67,
III
Horses, 15, 103, 104, 146, 156. I77. 179,
182, 210, 213, 245. 332, 370, 371
Hoyos, Count and Countess George, 18,
75
Hubner, M. de, 394
Huxley, Professor, 146, 332
Hyndman, H. M., 278, 279
Imperialism, 310
India, 80, 138, 285, 347
International Exhibition, 370
Ireland, 25, 27, 40, 51, 65, 290, 348^ 349,
375; see Home Rule
Irving, Henry, 280
Italy, Abyssinian expedition, 207, 217;
Colonial policy, 230; King of, 230,
370; treaty with, 53
Jameson, Dr., 115, 211, 214, 218, 226,
233. 281, 284
Jameson Raid, The, 211, 280, 283, 334
Japan, war with China, 151, 152
Jemal-ed-Din, Afghani, Sc^id, relig-
ious leader of Reform at Constanti-
nople, 100^ loi, 105, 2C6
Jews in Tunis, 160
Johore, Sultan of, 95, 96, 99, 100, 105
Jowdat, Ismail Bey, Director of the
Cairo police under the Nationalist
Government, 85
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4i6
Index
Jubilee Day, 279
Jusserand, M., 175
Kamel, Mustafa Pasha, Egyptian Na-
tional Leader, 95, 138
Kasr-el-Jibali, 250
Keat's Memorial Meeting, 145
Kelmscott Manor, 23, 24, 72; Press, 55,
67
Kerouan, 157, 158
Khartoum, 287, 310
Khedive, see Abbas and Tewfik
Kiamil Pasha, Grand Vizier, 11, i88>
306
Kiev, 180
Kimberley, 350
Kipling, Rudyard, 216, 333, 373
Kitchener General Lord, 95, 118, 126,
131. 134-137, 195, 205, 206, 210, 222,
223. 22s, 243, 3", 313, 317, 319-324,
330, 341, 342, 344, 349, 366, 373, 375.
376
Knowles, James, Editor of the "Nine-
teenth Century," 122, 306, 307
Kruger, President, 212, 325, 326, 331,
332, 339, 372
Labouchere, Rt Honble. Henry, M. P.,
52. 81, 93. 108, III, iiSi 117, 231,
308
Lacretelle, M., French artist, 3, 4
Ladysmith, 333, 34^, 3Si
Lascelles, Rt. Honble. Sir Frank, Am-
bassador at Berlin, 134, 145, 220, 231,
. 389, 392
Laureateship, The Poet, 82, 114, 144,
212, 279
Lauzun*s Memoirs, 178
Lawless, Miss, 173
Lawson. Sir Wilfred Bart, M. P., 52,
319, 322. 345, 369 •
Leboeuf, General, 393, 397
Leclerc, General, 155
Lefevre, George, 311
Legislative Council, Cairo, 122, 123,
124
Leo X, Pope. 17, 27
Lesseps, M. de, 214
Lisbon, 384
Literature. 396
Little Oasis. 256
Loch Kinnaird, 55
Longleat Park, 236
Lord Mayor of London, 177
Loti, Pierre, 314
Luxor, 194
Lytton, Robert Earl of, 22, 26, 40, 58,
59,403
Lytton, Lady, 171, 227, 366
Mafeking, relief of, 366, 367
Magician, Moorish, 70, 71
Magnusson, 77
Mahdi, The. 13, i95. 196, 242, 313, 317,
320. 323, 324, 330 344
Maher Pasha 136
Malet, Rt. Honble. Sir Edward, Am-
bassador at Berlin, 144, 282, 384
Malta, 163, 164, 165
Mangasheh. King. 223
Manning. Cardinal, 54, 75, 234, 235
Marchand. General, 287, 305, 306
Margot see Asquith
Matabele War, 114-117, 224, 237
Maxse, Admiral, 314, 326
Maxse, Miss Violet, 144
Memmon, Statue of, 195
Menelik, King, 217, 223
Meredith. George, 83, 143, 340
Mettemich, 398
Metz. 400
Meynell. Wilfrid, 75, 7^, 147, ^A 298,
.168
Meynell, Dr. Charles, 337
Michel, Louise, 5, 6
Middleton, John Henry, 70, 72, 231
Milan. King of Servia, 19
Militarism, 289, 310, 317
Milner, Sir Alfred, afterwards Lord,
44, 61, 85, 140, 325, 326, 328, 334, 351
Minjowar, Sheykh, of Kasr el Jibali,
249-252, 254
Minshatti Bey, 195, 196
Minshawi Pasha, Egyptian Nationalist,
16. 63
Mirage in Desert, 259
Mivart Professor D. D., 345, 347, 368
Modernism, 76, 83
Moehli, Ibrahim Bey, 12, 87, 99, lOi, 105
Moehli. Mohammed, 12, 30, 48, 87, 93,
95,96, 100, 105, no, 125
Morley, Rt. Honble. John, M. P..
afterwards Lord Morley of Black-
burn, 61, 66, 116, 117, 170, 220, 229,
245. 308, 313, 314, 321
Morocco, 5p
Morris, William, 23, 24, 25, 52, 55, 57,
66, 67. 72, 77. 82, III, 116, 149, 173.
212, 227-232, 238, 240, 294, 3<», 315
Mukhtar Pasha Ghazi, the Sultan's
representative at Cairo, 87, 96-98, 119,
131, 167
Munir Pasha, in the Sultan's service,
99, 102
Mustafa Fehmi Pasha, Prime Minister
at Cairo, 87, 92, 138, 204, 219, 22a
222, 223
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417
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French,
81, 176, 3", 392-397, 401
Nassar, Shihir Ibn, Sheykh of the
Harb Bedouins of Hejaz, 32, 33
National Movement, (Egyptian), 11,
84, 135, 138, 165, 350; (Irish), 25.
348
Natural history, 260
Nauplia, 10
Nazli, Princess, 10, 246
Negroes seized in Egypt, 224, 225, 243,
244; "^ree labour," 367
Nejd, 206, 207, 286
Nelidoff, M., de^ Russian Ambassador
at Constantinople, 99, 184, 192
Ncwbuildings, 170, 227, 278, 293, 306,
371
New Forest, 234, 307
Newman, Cardinal, 338
"New Pilgrimage, A," 22
"New Review," 169, 232, 278, 290
"News from Nowhere," 52
Nietzsche, 346, 347
Nile, Journey to upper, 193-204; val-
ley, 248
Noel, Edward of Eubaea, 9
Noel, Frank of Eubaea, 8, 11, 14
Nolde, Baron de, Russian traveller in
Arabia, 140, 143
Norman, Sir Henry, 117
Note, The Joint, 46
Nubar Pasha, Prime Minister at Cairo,
31, 45. 89, 125, 135-137. 167. 204, 313
O'Connor, T. P., M. P., 25, 114
Okeilah, I57-I59
Oldhouse, 235
Omdurman, Battle of, 296, 317, 320, 322
Orleans, due d', 120, 133
O'Shea, 50. 218
Osman Digna, Mahdist Leader, 13, 17,
29, 348
Osman Pasha, Prince, 10, 208, 288
Ouida, 364, 365
Oxford, 325
Palgrave, Francis, 173
Palgrave, Giffard, 173
Panislamic ideas, 96
Paris, 2, 5, 6, 25, 40, 57, 58, I77. 302,
370, 381, 383-402
Pamell, Charles Stuart, 18, 41, 50, 51,
54. 218, 219
Party, Irish Parliamentary, 348;
Liberal, 52
Pasteur, 203, 204
Paul, Kegan, Memoirs of, 337, 21S7
Peace Congress, 60; Peace and war» 21
Peel, Sir Robert, 170
Pembroke, George Earl of, 41, 169
"Petticoat, The," 76
Philae, 197, 198
Pilgrims, 352, 356, 357, 360-363
Poland, cause of, lost, 183
Politics, 25 ; American, 107 ; Bulgarian,
179; Dalmatian, 18; Egyptian, 11,
12, 43; Greek, 8; Irish, 27; Polish,
183; Vatican, 27
Polygamy, 11
Poore, Major, 151
Potock6, (Tount and Countess Joseph,
177, 178, 180, 280
Powell, York, 316, 325
Pretoria, 368
Prim, (general, 386, 387
Purcell, 234, 235
Rashid, Kfphammed Ibn, Emir of
Nejd, 13, 16, 114, 206, 277, 286
Redmond, John, M. P., iii, 303, 349
"Resurrection," 353
Revelstoke, 54
Reverseaux, M., de, French Minister
at Cairo, 86, 124, 125, 129, 138, 144
Rhodes, Cecil, 82, 117, 218, 222, 224,
225, 226, 233, 237. 243, 244, 27S, 281,
292, 334. 350. 351
Riaz Pasha, Prime Minister in
31. 33, 35, 43, 45, 49, 52, 86, 87,'
91, 92, 94, 97, "9, 121. 122, 135, 136,
166, 210
Ripon, Marquess of, 288
Rist. Dr. Edward, 361, 362
Robbers, Attack by, 46-4i8
Roberts, Lord, 341, 342, 350, 368
Rome, 27, so, 60
Rosebery, The Earl of, 61, 66, 72, 74,
81-83, it)i, 109, 112, 116, 133-135, 138,
140, 169. 170, 191, 215, 241, 308, 372
Rossetti Dante (jabriel, 72, 149, 315
Rothschild, Mme., Alphonse, 78, 176
Rothschilds, the, in Egypt, 278, 279
Rouen, 400
Roumelia, Great Plain of Eastern, 106
Rowton, Lord, 312, ^27
Rudolph, Crown Prmce of Austria, 19
Ruflfer, Dr., 195, 203, 204
Rumpenheim, chateau of, 382
Ruskin, John, 149
Russell, George W., ("A. E.,") Irish
poet, 291
Russell. Odo, 404
Russia, Emperor of, 132
Sabuitji, Louisi secretary to Saltan
Abdul Hamid, 102, 105
Sackville, Lionel, Lord, 90
Said Pasha, 215
St. Anthony, Convent of, 16B
St. Pagan's, 282
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4i8
Index
St Louis, shrine of, 154
St Winifred's Well, 292, 293, 30^ 30i
Saldanha, 384
Salisbury Cathedral, 236
Salisbury, Marquis, 27, 43> S^* 53. 58,
59, 61, 63, 68, 72, log, 173, 185, 191,
204, 210, 211, 214, 215, 218-222, 247,
280, 290, 298, 303. 307, 309b 3". 313,
327, 328* 406
Sanderson, Sir Thomas, head of the
Foreign Office^ afterwards Lord, 327
Sanguscko, Prince and Princess, Polish
nobleman, 178-180
Sanua, James (Abdu N^ddara) in
exile at Paris, 58, 305
Sapieha, Prince John, 181-183
Sargent, J. S., R. A., 314
Sarras, 201, 202
"Satan Absolved" 297, 300^ 307, 3^h
3^> 329> 333, 334 335« 340» 345, 34^
Savemake Forest, 150
Savona, 163, 165
Sedan, 402
Seglawi (horse), 37-39
Selamlik, The, 102
Senussia, The, 251, 254, 272, 276^ 363
Sermoneta, The Duke and Duchess of,
28, 29» 218, 230
Sfax, 160
Shahir ibn Nassir, 32, 33
Shaitan, 36
Shakespeare's house, 148
Shaw, Miss Flora, 226
Shehallion, 56
Sherei Hassan, leader of the Egyptian
Fellah Party, 48, 49
Sheridan, Brinsley, 70
Sheykh Obeyd, 11, 13, 30, 43. 46, 85,
118, 137, 165, I93» 304, 217, 226, 243,
275, 284, 338, 374
Siam, French attacking, 112
Siege of Paris, The, 403
Siseranne, M. de la, 305
Sittarah, Lake of, 260
Siwah, Journey to, 244, 247, 266-273
Statin, Sir Rudolf Pasha, 209, 216, 242
Slavuta, 179, 180
Slivnitza, battle of, 20
Socialism, 5, 6
Soudan. The, 25, 198, 209, 227, 230, 231,
287, 298, 3", 312. 313, 3ift 321, 349;
see also Dongola
"Souls," The, S3, 83, 146, 308, J75
South Africa, see Transvaal; Boer
War
Spain, abdication of Queen, 386
Spanish-American War, 290, 295, 306
Spencer, Herbert, 297, 3i7, 3i8^ 319,
326b 333, 342, 4x0^ 411
fitaal, M., de, Russian Ambassador to
England, 67, 314
"Stalky r 373
Stallion, purchase of a, 37-39
Stambuloff, 179
Stanley Expedition, The; 20
"Stealing of the Mare," 65, 68
Stonehenge, 151
Stonor, Monseignor, 27, 28, 50
Stratford-on-Avon, pilgrimage, to, 148,
228
Strickland, Count, 163, 164, 165
Suez Canal, 118
Sus, 159
Sutton Place, 329
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 55, 82,
114,212,229,333
Symonds, John Addmgton, 72
Tennant, Ladv, 57
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 77, 229
"Tercentenary Sonnet, A," 149
Tewfik, Khedive, 12, 13. 17, 31, 43, 49,
^,62. 63
Thompson, Francis, poet, 147, 148, 297,
298
Tichborne, Sir Roger, "the Claimant,"
292
Tigrane Pasha, Armenian Under-sec-
retary. for Foreign Affairs at Cairo,
35, 87, 91,^92, 97, "9, 120, 124, 125,
128, 129, 165, 210, 291
Timbuctoo, French occupation of, 128
Tolstoy, 314. 346. 353
"Tomorrow," A Woman's Journal for
Men, 83
Tonkin, 51
Toski, battlefield, 199, 200
Tourgueneff, 373
Towfik, Dr. Mohammed, 3, 198
Transvaal, The, 211, 214. 218, 222, 226,
232, 238. 244, 278, 280, 281, 323, 325-
^329, 335» 372, 375
Tree, Beerbohm, 332
Tricoupi. M., Prime Minister in
Greece, 8^ 9
Tripoli, 162
Tunis, 153, 154, 156, 160
Turin, 365
Turkey, Rosebery willing to partition.
loi ; see Abdul Hamid; Greece, War
with
Turr, Mme.. 8
Tyrrel, Father, 367, 368
Uganda, 77, 81
Ukraine, capital of the, 181
United States of America, 107, 21a
290, 295, 306, 331, 375; see Span-
ish-American War
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419
I
Urquhart, 151
Usedom, Count d*, Prussian Ambass-
ador at Frankfort, afterwards in
Italy. 8, 381, 389
Vambery, Professor, 189, 190
Vatican, The, 27
Vaughan, Cardinal, 75, 366
Vaux, le Vicomte, Chateau of, yB, 79
"Veiled Protectorate. TheV 84, 85
Venezuela, quarrel between £ngUmd
and U. S., about, 210
Victoria, Queen, 16, 43, 81, 114, I7h
212, 227. 281, 304, 313, 321. 329» 330^
335. 3SO, 366, 368
VilRers, Charles, 2^, 385
Villiers, Frank, 74
Vincennnes, Horse Show at, 370
Vincent, Rt Honble. Sir*£dgar, M. P.,
88. loi, 105, 119
Wagram, Prince and Princess, 22, 26,
55, 77* 175, 289, 302. 371
Wales, Prince of, afterwards King
Edward VII, 141, 142
Walsh, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, 51
War, see Boer, Franco-Prussian,
Japan, Matabele, Spanish-American,
Turco-Greek
Watson, William, 318. 410
Watts, George Frederick, R. A., 33,
„ 55. 70. 31S. 316, 319, 337
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 55, 82, 373
Webb, Philip, architect, 3W
Wells Cathedral, 237
Whitehead, Mr., 18
White Horse HUl, 149
Wiart, Carton de, 245, 247
Wilberforce, Reginald, 234
Wilde, Oscar, 42, 58, 66, 145, 146, 169^
mlhelm I, German Emperor, 388, 389,
398
Wilhelm II, German Emperor, 27-29,
54, 59i 169, 212, 220, 230, 305, 306,
, 322, 335, 343, 375
Wilson, Sir Charles Rivers, 52, 135
Wingate, General Sir Reginald, 209,
225, 242, 349
Wyndham, George, M. P., Irish Chief
Secretary, 22, 42, 53, 67, 68, 108, 109,
140, 143, 145, 169, 172, 226, 228, 231.
232, 244, 2:^ 290, 299, 302, 306, 307.
308, 314, 321, 322. 332. 336. 348, 366,
372, 375
Wyndham, Madeline, 294, 315
Wyndham, Percy, 294, 343
Yeats, W. B., 291, 292
Yellow Terror, 369
Yildiz, Palace; 99, 104
Yusuf, Sheykh Ali, Cairo journalist,
132, 246
Zaghoul, Saad Effendi, afterwards
Pasha, member of the Egyptian Fel-
lah Party, afterwards mmister, 48
Zanzibar. 238
Zebehr, Pasha, 16, 17, 137
Zeyd, Bedouin from Nejd in the
Author's service, 36-39
Zola, fimile, 289
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